Sen. Thomas Cullerton (D-Villa Park) | Photo Courtesy of Thomas Cullerton's website
Sen. Thomas Cullerton (D-Villa Park) | Photo Courtesy of Thomas Cullerton's website
An Illinois judge has sentenced former Sen. Thomas Cullerton to a year in federal prison for fraudulently accepting money and benefits from a labor union.
“It gives me no pleasure, Mr. Cullerton, to take you away from your family,” Judge Robert Gettleman said. “Every time you took that paycheck from the Teamsters without working for it, you knew that you were doing something wrong.”
The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Cullerton said to Gettleman he and his family received “online hate speech comments.” Although the judge understood their situation, he said the people behind the comments are upset about the corruption seen in Chicago’s federal court.
A Department of Justice news release said Cullerton worked for Teamsters Joint Council 25 as “a purported union organizer” and remained on the payroll until February 2016. He received a salary, monthly car and telephone allowances and bonuses, as well as funded participation in Teamsters Local Union 734’s health and pension funds, which enabled Cullerton to receive health and welfare benefits.
The news release noted that Cullerton took a plea deal and admitted that "he did little to no work as an organizer during the time he was on the union payroll. He ignored his supervisors when they tried to get him to perform his duties.
Cullerton fraudulently obtained from Joint Council 25 and its members approximately $169,488 in salary, bonuses and other benefits, approximately $57,662 in health and pension contributions, and approximately $21,678 in reimbursed medical claims. Cullerton admitted that he used the embezzled money to pay personal expenses, such as his mortgage, utilities and groceries.
Cullerton was a Democrat candidate for Illinois’ 8th District in 2016, according to Ballotpedia. However, he dropped from the race in July 2015.
Cullerton previously served as village president of Villa Park and was first elected to the Senate in 2012.
He pled guilty to the charges against him on March 8.
Ballotpedia also noted Cullerton beat Rep. Seth Lewis in the November 2018 general election to represent Illinois' 23rd District.
Cullerton resigned his seat in February.
He was indicted in August 2019.
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