Parents: Schmidt told our boy of alleged affair
State Sen. Suzi Schmidt for months barraged a neighboring family with harassing phone calls, texts and emails — even telling a 7-year-old boy his mother was having an affair with Schmidt’s estranged husband, the neighbors said in a court filing.
The husband-and-wife couple made the claims in an anti-stalking, no-contact order they obtained against Schmidt on Tuesday — the same day she was arrested for allegedly trespassing and damaging property outside their home in unincorporated Lake Villa.
On March 17, Schmidt allegedly “confronted my 7-year-old son and made inappropriate comments to him about an alleged affair I am having with her soon to be ex-husband,” the woman neighbor said in the court filing.
Schmidt, a Republican who al- ready had pledged not to run for re-election this year after a bizarre series of 911 calls from December 2010 to last September spotlighted her crumbling marriage, could not be reached Wednesday for comment.
The longtime former Lake County Board chairwoman was not even talking to political colleagues, who said they were still waiting for some response to the allegations that could end her public career.
But in an earlier police report, Schmidt told Lake County sheriff ’s deputies she had been harassed after complaining to the male neighbor that his wife was having an affair with her husband. The woman denied the claim, according to the police report, which was released Wednesday.
Schmidt was arrested on the misdemeanor charges for allegedly throwing boat oars from the family’s yard into a nearby marsh on June 2, and then punching a hole in a bag of chicken feed she found outside their home, according to a police report.
In other police reports, the neighbors contend they saw Schmidt as recently as June 9 taking pictures of the cars parked at their home.
The purported harassment began on Christmas Day 2010 — the same day Schmidt was heard on a 911 call asking police to disregard any calls from her husband, Robert, about a domestic problem.
In the call, she told the dispatcher she was a former Lake County board chairwoman and boasted her husband feared her because “he knows I have connections.”
Schmidt allegedly locked her husband out of their house that day during a quarrel, authorities have said.
She was not arrested following that incident, though lawmaker announced she would not run for reelection and would seek counseling. Her husband, meanwhile, filed for divorce.