Chicago DUI lawyer doesn't think an arrest should be reported to your boss

This Chicago DUI attorney has posted here, here, and here about the collateral consequences to a DUI.   She is surprised that the City would look to prohibit people from using their vacation time to serve time.  You would think, in this difficult climate that if the department could work that out with the employee the last thing that’s needed for a non-violent offender who has to do jail is the inability to work once they have completed their debt to society.

June 15, Chicago, IL

After his third conviction for drunken driving, city laborer John Galileo was sentenced to one year in Statesville Prison.

But that didn’t stop him from keeping his $30-an-hour city job thanks to a heavy dose of timekeeping fraud, according to a report by city Inspector General Joe Ferguson.

according to Ferguson’s report, LaGiglio collected three $896 city paychecks — totaling $2,688 — and one for $1,344 while serving time in Statesville Prison from April 1 to June 2, 2005.

LaGiglio was also able to maintain taxpayer-funded medical insurance valued at $1,500 while behind bars.

LaGiglio pulled it off by failing to disclose his conviction and sentencing to his bosses in the Department of Streets and Sanitation’s Bureau of Electricity. Two Streets and San timekeepers who maintained the records on his behalf have since retired. A supervisor whom Ferguson held responsible for the timekeeping fraud has also retired.

To prevent similar cases in the future, Ferguson is recommending that Mayor Daley issue an executive order requiring all city employees to report arrests or convictions within 24 hours. The proposed order would further require city workers to report “significant developments” in their pending legal cases in the criminal justice system.

Yikes!  Did you know it’s illegal for an employer to ask about arrests to a prospective employee? If this clears the City’s legal department watch out for private employers to also say as a condition of your employment you must report an arrest.