An Illinois police officer and close associate of Tiffany Henyard, the so-called “worst mayor in America,” has been indicted on bankruptcy and fraud charges as part of an ongoing federal investigation into alleged corruption within a small town’s government.
Lewis A. Lacey, who served as Dolton’s deputy police chief until he was fired in August, was indicted Monday by a federal grand jury for allegedly “engaging in a scheme to conceal assets and income from creditors and prevent payment of the settlement of a lawsuit,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Illinois.
Prosecutors said Lacey, 61, had filed numerous personal bankruptcy cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois since the 1980s and until as recently as 2020.
Petitions Lacey filed in 2019 and 2020 “automatically stayed enforcement of a settlement agreement Lacey had reached in 2017 with the plaintiff in a lawsuit in state court,” the attorney’s office said, explaining that the ex-cop allegedly “filed the 2019 bankruptcy petition shortly after the plaintiff moved to enforce the settlement agreement, accusing Lacey of still owing $43,000 of the $55,000 settlement.”
Officials went on to allege that Lacey made several false statements to conceal his real income from creditors:
The indictment alleges that Lacey made several materially false and fraudulent representations in oral statements and documents submitted in the bankruptcy cases, including underreporting his monthly income and concealing bank accounts that he controlled. Among other things, Lacey falsely represented that he was separated from his spouse and that she did not reside with him or contribute to his monthly income and mortgage, the indictment states. The false representations allowed Lacey to fraudulently calculate his monthly income for purposes of repayment of his creditors as substantially less than it should have been if his spouse’s contributions were included, the indictment states.
Prosecutors also noted that Lacey was indicted as part of the ongoing federal investigation into Henyard and her allies.
Gal Pissetzky, Lacey’s attorney, told the New York Post that his client was charged as part of a “bigger plan by the government to try to indict the mayor of Dolton.”
Claiming that his client is innocent, Pissetzky accused the feds of wanting to use the former deputy chief as a way to build a criminal case against Henyard.
“They’re going after certain people in the village to see who’s gonna turn on the mayor,” Pissetzky said.
Lacey could serve up to 45 years in prison if convicted of all the charges.
Henyard, a Democrat dubbed “America’s worst mayor” for her outlandish spending habits and alleged abuse of office, is also the subject of a “special investigation” conducted by former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Fox News reported.
Lightfoot, whom the Village of Dolton hired to look into Henyard’s alleged misconduct, revealed at a village board meeting that the town’s general fund balance dropped from $5.61 million to a deficit of $3.65 million in just two years under the mayor:
The “special investigator” also shared that Henyard made many expensive purchases at retailers like Amazon, Target, Walgreens, and Wayfair with the village credit card.
One credit card statement Lightfoot shared revealed a whopping $33,000 Amazon order made on January 5, 2023.
“These are somebody using the credit card and charging these amounts using your tax dollars,” Lightfoot told the angered people of Dolton, which has around 20,000 residents.
In a town where 20.2 percent of residents live in poverty, Henyard has a combined salary of nearly $300,000, as she is also a supervisor of Thornton Township.
Lightfoot’s preliminary investigation also revealed that two other Dolton police officers were paid for overtime that far exceeded their yearly salaries.
“One officer’s salary for fiscal year 2024 was $87,295, yet the officer received $114,800 in overtime pay. The second officer, with a salary of $73,515, received $102,077 in overtime pay for fiscal year 2024,” Fox News reported of the findings.
On top of a slew of financial problems, Henyard has also caused the town to become embroiled in controversy after a former village employee accused her of covering up an alleged sexual assault that a village trustee committed.
In April, the former employee filed a lawsuit against Henyard and Dolton Trustee Andrew Holmes, whom she accused of assaulting her on a work trip to Las Vegas in May 2023.
The civil lawsuit, filed with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, complained that instead of helping the alleged victim, Henyard terminated her employment with the Village of Dolton.
A Dolton police officer who voiced his support for the former employee’s story also complained that he was demoted to “patrol duty” and removed from the mayor’s security detail just days after the alleged victim complained.
As of late April, Henyard was facing 22 lawsuits regarding her conduct and was dropped by her law firm for not paying up, Breitbart News reported.
Instead of owning up to her shortcomings, Henyard has repeatedly bragged about being Dolton’s youngest and first female mayor and pulled the race card out on her critics.
During a February town meeting where she was questioned about her spending, Henyard snapped at fellow officials in a dramatic rant:
“Y’all should be ashamed of y’all selves. Y’all black. Y’all are black. And y’all sitting up here beating and attacking on a black woman that’s in power. Y’all should be ashamed of y’all selves,” she said.
“Y’all forget I am the leader. They want to hear from the mayor. If y’all ain’t learned that yet, the mayor. Not the trustees that don’t do nothing that only run they mouth. Y’all don’t do no work, no work.”