Judge to Allow Gambling Evidence in Illinois Official Trial

According to the Ford County Chronicle, a Kankakee County judge in Illinois will allow a jury to hear evidence related to former Iroquois County Public Health Department administrator Dee Ann Schippert’s gambling in her upcoming theft, forgery, and misconduct trial. 

On June 24, Kankakee County Judge William Dickenson denied a motion from Schippert’s lawyer to exclude her gambling history, claiming it was “irrelevant.”

Her lawyers are Mark Sykoff Sr. and Daniel Fultz. 

They say they’re planning to file another motion for Dickenson to reconsider. A hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday, August 20, at 1:30 p.m. 

This comes after, last year, in November, and Illinois Township Supervisor Sally Rodriguez refused to resign after admitting to using government funds at a casino. 

More About the Case

Schippert has been charged with 33 felonies. These include eight counts of government property by deception, eight counts of forgery, and 17 counts of official misconduct. 

Schippert, 57, is free from custody under pretrial conditions. 

Scheppert’s legal team filed a motion to avoid mention of her political and social views. The court granted this without objection. 

The charges allege that Schippert stole more than $100,000 from the health department between May 2020 and July 2022 by submitting fraudulent time sheets, which included hours she didn’t work. This included overtime.

She also allegedly made “false representations” to the Board of Health to obtain approval for 179 hours of overtime and fraudulently used grant funds for COVID-19 to finance her overtime pay. 

She was also accused of firing an employee in June 2022 after someone reported her actions to authorities. 

Prosecutors say that they’ll prove that, over that time, she spent at least 759 hours at a gambling outlet in Watseka. This was an average of 38 hours per month. She was allegedly there while claiming to be working. 

They also claim to have evidence, including eyewitness testimony from county employees who saw her vehicle at the casino, Schippert’s cell phone and office call logs, and remote access to log-in information from her work laptop. 

“The People intend to present evidence from both witnesses as well as documentary records reviewed during the investigation to demonstrate that the Defendant was not only not working her required 40 hours per week (but) was also falsifying her overtime hours in order to receive overtime pay,” Assistant Illinois Attorney General Haley Bookhout wrote.

If convicted, Scheppert could face a long prison sentence. 

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