Dominick: Leaveme out of suit vs. Mike Madigan
Attorneys for Cicero Town President Larry Dominick say there’s no reason he should be involved in a federal lawsuit that accuses House Speaker Mike Madigan of winning elections by recruiting “sham” candidates, contending a “personal political grudge” and “harassment” are behind the effort to drag Dominick into the case.
Lawyers for Jason Gonzales, a former primary challenger to Madigan who filed the lawsuit, offered no sound legal argument for demanding Dominick sit for a deposition, according to a response filed Thursday by Dominick’s attorney.
“When askedwhat the possible relevanceof the town president’s depositionwas, Gonzales’ attorneyswere not really able to come up with anything substantive and kept repeating that ‘ Larry is King’ and ‘ Everyone knows he runs that Town,’” according to Dominick’s filing.
Gonzales’ attorneys on June 14 filed a motion claiming aman sent to deliver a subpoena to Dominick to appear for the deposition wound up being arrested by Cicero police and left shivering in a room with the air conditioning cranked up.
Gonzales is represented by Tony Peraica’s firm, and lawyers for Dominick claim Peraica has a “personal political grudge” against Dominick. A response filed in the U. S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois notes that in Peraica’s bid to hold on to his Cook County commissioner seat in 2010, Dominick endorsed challenger Jeffrey Tobolski. It also points to Peraica’s conviction for damaging Tobolski’s campaign signs a few days before the election, which Peraica lost.
“Regardless of in what ‘ capacity’ Peraica seeks the deposition of Town President Dominick, it is unreasonable for Peraica to believe that a sitting mayor, who Peraica has a personal political grudge against related to Peraica’s own political defeats, would sit down to be questioned at a deposition unlimited in scope and without an attorney present to represent the town president in a case filed against the speaker of the Illinois House and heavily covered by the media,” the filing says.
The filing says attorneys for the Town of Cicero sent correspondence to Gonzales’ attorney on June 18 after reading the Sun- Times story about the Dominick subpoena, requesting the motion be immediately withdrawn and asking what relevant information the town president could have.
Gonzales’ attorneys responded back via email and refused to withdraw the motion, the filing says, and “essentially said it was none of the attorneys’ business” because it was in relation to Dominick “personally,” and not about his role as town president.
Dominick’s attorneys say in the filing that the “only tangential element” Gonzales’ attorney could bring up was that Ruth Ortega, a resident of Berwyn, works for the town of Cicero and was also being issued a subpoena in the case.
Dominick’s attorneys say his deposition is “not relevant, that Gonzales’ attorney should not be given further opportunity to establish relevant basis, that the subpoena’s primary purpose is harassment, and ultimately, that the subpoena should be quashed and barred as unduly burdensome, and to prevent ‘ annoyance’ and ‘ oppression.’”
Gonzales claims in the suit that Madigan put up two “sham” candidates with Hispanic names to try to split the Hispanic vote in the March 2016 primary. Madigan beat Gonzales 65.2 percent to 27.1 percent. The other two candidates received a combined 7.8 percent.
Peraica is also hoping to uncover whether Madigan used campaign funds under his control to alert voters to Gonzales’ criminal history, which had been expunged.
Gonzales’ lawyers are investigating connections between one of the candidates in question, and political operatives in the town of Cicero.
The fight over whether Dominick should be issued a subpoena was uncovered in a June 14 court filing in which Gonzales’ attorneys claimed a process server, William Rivera, wound up being arrested by Cicero police and left shivering in a room with the air conditioning cranked upwhen he tried to find Dominick and Ortega to issue subpoenas.
Dominick’s spokesman dismissed the allegations of police mistreatment and false arrest, saying “this is typical Tony Peraica.”