Posted by Todd Lighty and Hal Dardick at 12:05 p.m.; last updated at 4:43 p.m.
Mayor Richard Daley was sued today by his top ethics officer who claims that the mayor wrongly suspended him.
Anthony Boswell, executive director of the mayor’s Office of Compliance, earlier this month was suspended for 30 days without pay after an inspector general’s investigation found that he had allegedly mishandled a student intern’s sexual harassment complaint. Daley said at the time he was following the inspector general’s recommendation by disciplining Boswell. You can read that story by clicking here.
Boswell also sued Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, claiming Ferguson had “blatantly exceeded” his authority in investigating Boswell, who heads an independent office.
You can read the lawsuit filed in Cook County Chancery Court by clicking here: Download Boswellsuit
At a downtown news conference, Boswell said he filed the suit because he wants to regain his job and his reputation. Boswell did not criticize Daley.
“I have a great deal of respect for the mayor and believe he has responded to a bad recommendation,” said Boswell, who appeared with attorney Jamie Wareham.
“I moved my family here approximately two years ago from Dallas to serve a four-year term. I was intrigued by what the mayor wanted to accomplish, namely to establish a corporate-style office of compliance for the city of Chicago. The city Chicago is currently still the only city in the world that has an office of compliance," Boswell said. “All you have in the end is your reputation, and this is very important to me.”
Asked if the fight could get nasty because of what Boswell had learned during his time in Chicago, Boswell replied, “Possibly.”
The Daley administration said it just received the suit and had no immediate comment. Ferguson also had no immediate comment.
Boswell alleges that Ferguson’s investigation was politically motivated and formed the basis for his suspension. The suit alleges that senior aides to Daley — notably the mayor’s top lawyer Mara Georges — used the inspector general’s report as a pre-text to retaliate against Boswell.
“Georges has targeted and threatened the Office of Compliance because staffers in that office have uncovered numerous violations of the hiring plan, including an effort to promote the under-qualified daughter of a political crony,” according to a statement accompanying Boswell’s lawsuit.
The suit claims that Boswell’s office exposed and stopped Georges’ attempt to get around court-ordered hiring rules and promote her predecessor’s daughter to “an elevated position” in the Law Department. Boswell alleges that Georges and her department continue to violate hiring rules.
Georges issued a statement late this afternoon.
“Mr. Boswell’s allegations that I engaged in a campaign of retaliation against him, anyone on his staff or the Office of Compliance are completely false. I always tried to work cooperatively with Mr. Boswell, the monitor and the IG to improve the hiring processes in all City departments to ensure that the City would be found to be in substantial compliance with the Shakman decree,” Georges’ statement read.
Jenny Hoyle, a spokeswoman for the Law Department, said that then-Inspector General David Hoffman investigated the matter involving Kathleen Crowe Barakat, the daughter of Daley’s former corporation counsel Brian Crowe. Hoffman “did not concur with Boswell’s allegations,” Hoyle said.
Hoyle released the inspector general’s report on the Crowe case. You can read it by clicking here: Download Croweinvestigation.
Crowe Barakat, who left the Law Department last year, said today that she was qualified for the promotion and no one had done anything improper, noting that was the conclusion reached by the inspector general. “In short, it’s ridiculous,” she said. “It’s sour grapes here and Boswell is trying to lash out at anyone he can.”
As for the reason cited for his suspension, Boswell said he decided against taking action for the sexual harassment complaint against the employee cited in Ferguson’s report after relying on the opinion of an experienced investigator. She laughed at the allegations, Boswell said.
City Hall is operating under a decades-long consent decree aimed at keeping politics out of most personnel decisions. A federal judge appointed a monitor in 2005 to oversee hiring after federal authorities accused Daley’s patronage chief and others of circumventing that decree by rigging hiring to reward the mayor’s political allies with jobs, promotions and overtime.
Daley has said he plans to ask the court this year to end oversight, arguing that the city is in "substantial compliance," a legal threshold for ending court involvement.
Daley has moved to strip Boswell’s office of any responsibility for hiring and giving it to the inspector general as part of an effort to end court oversight.
Asked today if he thinks there are serious, ongoing problems with city hiring, Boswell said, “I think there are certain departments in the city that think they are above the processes that have been established.”