Dolton Badges Tarnished? (Chicago Sun-Times)

By Frank Main, Chicago Sun-Times
Contributing: Steve Warmbir, Tim Novak
Friday, April 26, 2002

The Village of Dolton has doled out deputy marshal badges to Mayor William Shaw's son and political contributors to the mayor--including at least one convicted felon who claims he bought his badge from Shaw for more than $30,000.

The 18 marshals are authorized to carry guns, though none has been called to duty since Shaw launched the program in 1997.

They are required to undergo 20 hours of firearms training with the Dolton police, but the village police chief said he does not know if any of the marshals ever did.

"We plan to contact the marshals and make sure they have their training," said Chief Joel Westbrook when pressed by the Chicago Sun-Times on Thursday. "I do not know what happened prior to my becoming chief on June 18, 2001."

Some say the badges are simply a way for Shaw to bestow a perk on his pals.

"By the end of 1997, I heard reports of unsavory characters flashing badges," said former Dolton trustee Mary Kay Duggan, who had voted against the program.

"Police officers from other communities would report picking up people who were flashing Dolton marshal's badges," Duggan said. "The people who got the badges were the people who perennially got jobs or grants or favors. This was just one mechanism for the mayor to reward those loyal to him."

Dolton attorney Everett McCleary said the marshals program was formed to back up the police department in the event of a walkout of full-time police officers. He insisted that the selection of marshals was the sole responsibility of former Police Chief Howard Patterson Sr., who died in 2001.

Westbrook said the marshals are the equivalent of the Illinois National Guard, a reserve force the village can call on in the event of an emergency.

Westbrook said he was "concerned quite a bit" that convicted felon Arthur Veal had received a badge.

The chief said he has conducted a name check through FBI and State Police databases to make sure none of the current 18 marshals is a felon.

Records show that seven marshals--including Veal--were terminated between December 2000 and April 2001, but Westbrook said he does not know why.

The marshal program was thrust into the spotlight this week when Veal testified in federal court that he bought a badge from Shaw for $30,000 to $40,000. Shaw denied the accusation, saying he only knew Veal as the owner of a Dolton trucking business.

Veal and his associate, Lee R. Elam, both received badges in 1998 under the program.

The department ordered Veal to return his badge after he was arrested in November 2000 on a federal drug charge. He has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for smuggling 88 pounds of cocaine.

Veal had flashed his marshal's badge to federal drug agents when he was stopped with $5,749 in cash in Texas in June 2000. Agents seized the money and let Veal go.

Elam also was told to give back his badge after he was arrested in 1999 in Texas with 1,000 pounds of cocaine in a tractor-trailer he was driving. Elam, armed with a handgun, told Border Patrol agents he was a deputy with the Dolton Police Department, records show.

Marshals have given at least $5,540 in political contributions to Shaw since 1996, including $2,540 from Veal's company, Libby's Transportation, state campaign finance records show.

Shaw's brother, Cook County Board of Review Commissioner Robert Shaw, received a total of $7,720 from the Dolton marshals, records show.

Among the current marshals is William E. Dugan, president of Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers.

Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan ordered Dugan to return a sheriff's deputy badge in 1991 after Sheahan took office, sheriff's spokesman Bill Cunningham said. More than 2,000 badges were recalled.

"We felt only sworn officers should carry badges," Cunningham said. "People were abusing them. We heard stories of people getting out of tickets by using them."

Bill Lockhart, William Shaw's longtime aide, is a marshal, records show.

Attorney Christopher Millet, whose office is in west suburban Westchester, is another badge-holder. He recently represented William Shaw over his alleged role in recruiting a man named Jesse Jackson to adopt the middle initial "L" and run against the congressman. That man later dropped out of the race.

Millet said he and Shaw's son Victor--also a marshal--went to college together and that he was Victor's campaign manager in a losing bid for mayor of Riverdale in 1997.

"I don't think it's bad for people without police backgrounds to have marshal's badges," Millet said after he was told that Shaw originally planned for retired officers to hold the unpaid jobs.

Millet said he never used a badge to try to wiggle out of a traffic ticket.

"All power does not corrupt," he said.

Millet also said he does not carry a gun. He said he gravitated to the position because of his experience working security for hospitals and the City Colleges of Chicago before he became a lawyer.

"When I was a kid, I wanted to be a bodybuilder, a lawyer and a policeman," he said.

Community activist Myron Smith called the allegations raised by Veal disturbing and urged an investigation into every marshal badge issued in Dolton.

"My neighbors today are asking each other, 'Who do we trust? Who is protecting us? Are we safe?' " he said.

John Gorman, spokesman for Cook County State's Attorney Dick Devine, said he could not comment on whether the office is investigating Veal's allegations.
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