Tag: chicago

Chicago priest accused of molesting kids makes bombshell claim against Pope Leo

A defrocked priest who was accused of sexually abusing at least 13 children has made a bombshell claim against the new pope. 

Robert Prevost, who was named the new head of the Vatican earlier this month, has been accused of turning a blind eye to the Church’s sexual abuse scandal in Chicago when he served as the head of the Midwest Province of the Catholic Church’s Augustinian order.

Now, former priest James M Ray also claims Prevost signed off on his move to a Hyde Park monastery near a Catholic elementary school – despite the fact that Ray had already been accused of molesting children.

‘He’s the one who gave me permission to stay there,’ Ray recently told the Chicago Sun-Times. 

The priest is included on an Archdiocesan list of accused sexual offenders, which claims he was subject to ‘limited ministry with restrictions’ starting in 1990 following sexual abuse allegations.

Still, he worked for three parishes – and in 2000, the Archdiocese of Chicago stepped in to help him find a place to live where he would not pose a threat to the public.

However, they ultimately let Ray stay for two years at the St. John Stone Friary – which is less than one block from the St. Thomas the Apostle Elementary School and across the ally from a child care center. 

The school was never notified that Ray – who has never been convicted of any crime and is not included on any government sex offender registries – was moving into the area, and there is no indication that the child care center was notified either.

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Tech exec found ‘pulverized,’ missing a foot after plunging 20 stories from luxe Chicago condo — and nobody has been charged

A Chicago tech executive was found “pulverized” and missing a foot in a stairwell of the luxury condo building where she lived with her husband, her heartbroken family has revealed — and now they’re fighting for justice.

Caitlin Tracey, 36, died from “multiple injuries” and a “fall from height” after plummeting more than 20 stories down a stairwell at her South Loop building, the Cook County medical examiner ruled.

However, the manner of her death was left “undetermined,” and there have been no charges filed in Tracey’s gruesome demise.

Her husband, Adam Beckerink, 46, a well-known Chicago tax attorney, was charged last month with battering her in her hometown of New Buffalo, Michigan, in January and August 2024. He’s also accused of assaulting cops who tried to arrest him, according to FOX 32.

Beckerink was detained and questioned by Chicago police after he filed a missing persons report for Tracey before her body was found on Oct. 27, but he was later released without charges.

“He had nothing to do with his wife’s death, and he will continue to appear in court. And we will continue to speak through our filings in court on his behalf,” Beckerink’s attorney told local media in March.

Tracey’s family is pushing to keep attention on the case.

Attorneys hired by her loved ones told Fox 32 in March that her body was “pulverized” and her foot was severed in the fall.

Her grieving parents were embroiled in a legal dispute earlier this year over the handling of her remains after Beckerink claimed he had the rights to her body as the surviving spouse.

The parents eventually won custody of her remains, which they brought back to Michigan.

Beckerink, previously a partner at corporate law firm Duane Morris, was fired after the domestic abuse allegations surfaced.

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Trump DOJ Launches Investigation Into Marxist Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson After He Boasts About His Disgusting, Racist Hiring Policy

The Marxist, anti-white mayor of Chicago may now face federal prosecution for his stunning comments about his vile, racist hiring policy.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, Mayor Brandon Johnson boasted that he only hires black people because they are the “most generous people on the planet.” He also labored on how blacks make up the majority of influential positions in the mayor’s office.

“There are detractors that will push back on me and say, you know, the only thing that the mayor talks about is the hiring of black people,” Johnson bragged. “No, what I’m saying is, when you hire our people, we always look out for everybody else. We are the most generous people on the planet.”

“I don’t know too many cultures that have play cousins,” he added. “That’s how generous we are. We just make somebody a family member, right? This is how we are.”

“So, Business and Economic Neighborhood Development, the deputy mayor, is a black woman. Department of Planning and Development is a black woman. Infrastructure, deputy mayor, is a black woman. Chief Operations Officer is a black man. Budget Director is a black woman. Senior Advisor is a black man.”

Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, announced the DOJ launched an investigation into Johnson’s remarks about Chicago’s alleged hiring practices.

“The Department of Justice is opening an investigation to determine whether the city of Chicago, Illinois, is engaging in a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race,” the letter reads.

“Our investigation is based on information suggesting that you have made hiring decisions solely on the basis of race. In your remarks made yesterday at the Apostolic Church of God in Woodlawn, you ‘highlight[ed] the number of Black officials in [your] administration,” the letter goes on to say.

Dhillon goes on to point out in the letter that Johnson made the following remarks, which emphasize racism.

• “Business and Economic Neighborhood Development, the deputy mayor is a Black woman.”
• “Department of Planning and Development is a Black woman.”
• “Infrastructure, deputy mayor is a Black woman.”
• “Chief operations officer is a Black man.”
• “Budget director is a Black woman.”
• “Senior advisor is a Black man.”

Dhillon went on to note that if Johnson was hiring based on race for high-level decisions, he quite possible was doing the same for lower-level ones.

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Chicago mayor permanently removes all Columbus statues from city parks

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has said he supports the decision for the city to permanently eliminate statues of Christopher Columbus from two different city parks. He said that the decision shows the city’s “collective humanity.” 

Both the Arrigo Park and Grant Park Columbus statues were removed from their places after the Black Lives Matter protests and riots during the summer of 2020, according to Fox 32. The statues have been in limbo after the original choice to remove them by former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, but Johnson backed a plan to make the removals permanent on Tuesday. 

“Art and culture in particular is something that I don’t believe we should erase,” Johnson said. “And we do have to make sure that our presentation is depicting not just truth, but the best part of our existence, which is our collective humanity.”

The permanent removals come after the resolution of a lawsuit launched by the Joint Civic Committee of Italian Americans (JCCIA) over the statue. The settlement agreement sees to it that the statue from Arrigo Park goes to a museum that the JCCIA owns. The deal will leave the base in the park empty.

Mayor Johnson’s Park District CEO Rosa Ramirez-Rosa said of the plan, “The Chicago Park District is committed to diversifying our statuary to ensure we are honoring Chicago’s rich history and diversity.”

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After 6 Years and an Overturned Conviction, Jussie Smollett and Chicago Reach Settlement over Hate Crime Hoax

Hate crime hoaxer and actor Jussie Smollett has finally reached a settlement with the city of Chicago six years after the city sued him over his accusations.

Chicago sued Smollett after he was accused of orchestrating a hoax when he claimed in 2019 that he was assaulted by two men in MAGA hats during a freezing Chicago winter. Police later determined that Smollett knew the two men and had organized the “attack” so he could drum up publicity to help his acting career.

City officials sued Smollett to recover the $130,000 in expenses the city incurred investigating his claims of being subjected to a hate crime in the middle of deep blue Chicago.

But Smollett denied orchestrating the assault and counter sued the city for what he said were false accusations.

Now, according to NBC News, Smollett has settled the case, though the city has not reported the details saying they “need more time to finalize documentation.”

Smollett was the focus of a special prosecutor determined that Smollett did commit a hoax and also said Chicago prosecutor Kim Foxx committed “substantial abuses of discretion” in her lax conduct of the case. Smollett was also charged with six disorderly conduct counts.

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Trump Admin Investigates Chicago Public Schools For Racial Discrimination

The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation into Chicago Public Schools (CPS) for alleged racial discrimination in its “Black Student Success Plan,” which reportedly only focuses on the academic achievement of black students.

The Title VI investigation comes after education advocacy organization Defending Education filed a complaint with the department’s Office for Civil Rights in February. The Education Department’s press release states that the “Black Student Success Plan” deals with “remedial measures only for black students, despite acknowledging that Chicago students of all races struggle academically.”

“Chicago Public Schools have a record of academic failure, leaving students from all backgrounds and races struggling and ill-prepared to meet the challenges and enjoy the rewards of contemporary American life,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said. “Rather than address its record honestly, CPS seeks to allocate additional resources to favored students on the basis of race. The Trump-McMahon Department of Education will not allow federal funds, provided for the benefit of all students, to be used in this pernicious and unlawful manner.”

“To CPS, I say this: Every American student deserves access to a quality education, and the Trump Administration will fight tirelessly to uphold that ideal and ensure all students are treated equally under law,” he added.

Also in February, the department sent a notice to state education officials that they will no longer be allowed to have programs that exclude people based on race or make race-based hiring decisions, as had become the norm for diversity, equity, and inclusion-crazed school districts. Some states, schools, and left-wing interest groups have attempted to fight the directive.

Chicago is no different, and its Democrat mayor, Brandon Johnson, threatened to sue the Trump administration if it cut its $1.3 billion (about 16 percent of CPS’s annual budget) in federal funding due to the city’s DEI obsession.

The state got involved as well, with the Illinois State Board of Education sending a letter to the Education Department claiming it was in compliance with Title VI and that it really has no idea what the Trump administration means by DEI — the common refrain from left-wing protectors of the ideology, despite the fact that what is meant by “DEI” is well documented.

The state board also has an entire page dedicated to its commitment to the ideology, and CPS has an “Office of Equity” complete with a DEI resource guide.

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Mayor Johnson takes campaign cash from lawyer whose firm has pending lawsuits against City Hall

Chicago lawyer Antonio Romanucci has become one of the better-known civil rights and personal injury attorneys, known for handling high-profile lawsuits, including one that led to a $27 million settlement for the family of George Floyd after his 2020 murder by a Minneapolis cop.

Locally, his Loop law firm Romanucci & Blandin, LLC, represents clients in nine pending lawsuits against City Hall, with one of those cases involving allegations that Chicago cops framed a South Side man for the 1988 murder of a little boy. Two other lawsuits involving the firm have been settled by City Hall since Mayor Brandon Johnson took office in May 2023.

Even though Johnson’s Law Department holds huge sway over such legal cases — often helping decide if and how to settle them, affecting bottom lines for clients and Chicago taxpayers — the mayor continues to accept campaign contributions from Romanucci and other employees of his law firm, records show.

While Johnson is not supposed to accept campaign donations from city contractors under municipal ethics rules, there’s no prohibition on taking campaign cash from lawyers doing battle with City Hall.

A founding partner of his firm, Romanucci gave $5,000 to Friends of Brandon Johnson in a contribution dated Feb. 18, according to Illinois State Board of Elections records.

Elizabeth Romanucci, who handles event planning for the firm, gave $1,000 in a contribution dated Feb. 24, records show.

Stefanie Stein, director of marketing for the firm, gave another $1,000 on the same date.

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Court docs show US govt knew about – and used – Chicago ‘black site’

Scandals don’t get much more disturbing than that of Homan Square. In 2015, the Guardian revealed Chicago Police had allegedly employed torture and days-long unlawful detention at the secretive “black site”-like Homan Square facility, a nondescript warehouse located in Chicago’s West-side Garfield Park neighborhood. Outraged and alarmed by these revelations, politicians and activists clamored for the US Department of Justice to investigate human rights abuses at the facility, which still operates today.

Despite the pleading, the DOJ elected not to investigate Homan Square, and instead conducted a broad investigation of Chicago Police Department use of force practices.

The DOJ’s failure to thoroughly examine the alleged abuses at Homan left onlookers confused. Investigating the CPD’s use of force was important, of course, but why wouldn’t the DOJ also investigate the Homan Square facility given the severity of the allegations?

One of the main figures pushing for a DOJ probe of Homan Square was then-Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin, who sent letters to the Department asking them to investigate the facility. Asked whether he ever received an explanation as to why the DOJ didn’t investigate the facility, Boykin said: “I did not, which is surprising right?”

Noir News has examined an element of the Homan Square story that provides important context regarding the Department’s decision: the Department of Justice was inside Homan Square all along, well aware of its use for extrajudicial detention, conducted its own interrogations in the facility, and is implicated in at least one of its most egregious abuse cases, that of Angel Perez.

Perez alleged CPD officers took him to Homan Square and pressured him to act as a cooperating witness in an investigation of alleged drug dealer Dwayne Payne. Namely, the officers wanted Perez to set up a drug purchase with Payne. Perez said he was taken to a room on the second floor of Homan Square, handcuffed to a bar, and placed in ankle shackles for several hours. Officers allegedly threatened to plant evidence on Perez and send “him to the Cook County jail to be raped by gang members.”

After refusing to cooperate in the investigation, Perez alleges he was physically and verbally tortured by the officers for hours and that they refused to grant him access to a lawyer. One of the officers told Perez, “‘I hear that a big black nigger dick feels like a gun up your ass.’” Then an officer “inserted a cold metal object, believed to be one of [the] officer’s service revolvers, into the plaintiff’s rectum causing the plaintiff severe pain and humiliation.” Finally, Perez relented and agreed to buy heroin from Payne for the officers.

Importantly, Perez’s lawsuit and The Guardian’s reporting on the matter solely implicated the CPD. But as Noir News has discovered, a 2022 court order reveals the investigation that resulted in Perez’s detention and torture at Homan Square wasn’t just a CPD operation. Rather, the investigation of Payne, the alleged drug dealer, was a “joint investigation with the USAO [United States Attorneys’ Office].” The United States Attorneys’ Office is an arm of the Department of Justice.

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Accused serial killer Antonio Reyes charged with six Chicago murders in 2020

Chicago police and Cook County prosecutors on Wednesday announced murder charges against an alleged serial killer accused of killing six people at random over a span of nine months in 2020.

Antonio Reyes, 21, is charged with the murders of six people and the attempted murders of four others – including three children, between March and November 2020, according to police and Cook County court records:

  • The shooting death of 31-year-old Francisco Mangana on March 2, 2020, in the 2600 block of West 59th Street;
  • The shooting death of 21-year-old Claudio Cossio on April 5, 2020, in the 4100 block of South Sacramento Avenue; and the attempted murder of another man in the same shooting;
  • The shooting death of 16-year-old Damian Duran on May 1, 2020, in the 5200 block of South Homan Avenue;
  • The shooting death of 26-year-old Luis Davalos Garcia on June 24, 2020, in the 5800 block of South Rockwell Avenue;
  • The shooting death of 31-year-old Jose Martinez on Nov. 8, 2020, in the 5400 block of South Homan Avenue; and the attempted murders of Martinez’s three children, who were all between 3 and 9 years old at the time;
  • The shooting death of 20-year-old Justin Gonzalez on Nov. 9, 2020, in the 4700 block of West 59th Street.

“These are six lives that were brutally taken,” Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling said. “It’s difficult to comprehend how anyone could easily take someone’s life, and especially so many in one year.”

Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Garien Gatewood said, “I cannot commend the work of the Chicago Police Department enough” for its work on the case.

“Our entire administration and our entire city is grateful for the work they did to remove a serial killer from the streets. I cannot thank the work of the State’s Attorney’s office enough, either,” Gatewood said.

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Frustrated Chicagoans Cheer ICE Deportations and Efforts Targeting Sanctuary Policies

Chicago resident Vashon Tuncle joined “The Ingraham Angle,” to share his support for ICE’s efforts as well as the frustration many in his community feel after being ‘abandoned’ by local and state officials.

Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker (D) and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) have made it clear that protecting the city and state’s sanctuary policies for illegals is more important than protecting American citizens.

Pritzker is so committed to keeping ICE from doing what is necessary to secure our country that he spread a vicious hoax to sow fear in the community by falsely claiming ICE agents visited a school on Chicago’s South Side.

It was, in fact, Secret Service agents investigating a threat at the school, not ICE.

On Thursday, The Department of Justice on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago for allegedly interfering with federal immigration enforcement.

The lawsuit claims Pritzker and Johnson, as well as others, asserts that several state and local laws are “designed to and in fact interfere with and discriminate against the Federal Government’s enforcement of federal immigration law in violation of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.”

Pritzker left his “tough talk” for President Trump rather than the criminals destroying his state.

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