Ex-state’s attorney of LaSalle County sues successor for ‘malicious prosecution’ after case accusing him of official misconduct fizzles
A long-running legal soap opera in LaSalle County added another chapter Monday, when an ex-state’s attorney filed a lawsuit saying his successor violated his rights through a “malicious prosecution” that accused him of misdeeds while in office.
Brian Towne served as the county’s state’s attorney from 2006 to 2016, losing a bitter election to lawyer Karen Donnelly, who had earlier worked in the office. Once she took over, Towne claims, she investigated his tenure “to settle a political score” stemming from his prosecution of her son several years earlier.
The inquiry produced a 17-count indictment, handed up in 2017, accusing Towne of having his staff conduct political activity during office hours, donating thousands of dollars in public funds to a local high school club and paying personal expenses with money generated through a controversial asset forfeiture program.
That program, known as the State’s Attorney Felony Enforcement unit — or SAFE — saw special investigators from Towne’s office stop the cars of suspected drug traffickers on Interstate 80, seizing vehicles, cash and other assets that amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
An Illinois appellate court ruled in 2015 that the unit exceeded the limits of Towne’s authority, and the program was later disbanded. Donnelly made the program a key part of her campaign, accusing Towne of being “a rogue state’s attorney who is running an unregulated, private police force.”
Three people stopped by the special investigators sued Towne — two were men who spent months in jail on drug charges before the charges were dropped — but judges threw out the lawsuits for exceeding the statue of limitations.
Towne’s lawsuit claims Donnelly’s prosecution was politically motivated and not supported by probable cause. He succeeded in getting a special prosecutor to take over for Donnelly, saying she was biased against him, and last year, a judge dismissed the criminal case against Towne, saying his rights to a speedy trial had been violated.
The lawsuit accuses Donnelly, several of her employees and two Ottawa police officers of violating his constitutional rights, malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress, saying “(their) conduct is something one would expect in a totalitarian government where political opponents are routinely persecuted and executed; it is not expected here.”
Donnelly said by phone that the lawsuit contains “flat-out lies” and was likely meant to boost the fortunes of her opponent in the November election, a former prosecutor named Todd Martin, who worked under Towne.
“You can file a lawsuit over anything, but what the case will ultimately be decided on is proof and facts, which Mr. Towne will have a hard time proving,” she said.
Towne seeks unspecified damages and attorneys’ fees.
Twitter @JohnKeilman
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