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Assert Earn. Thaddeus Jones, who’s also mayor of Calumet City, paid tens of hundreds of greenbacks in the necessary quarter of this yr to a guidelines firm that focuses on prison defense, files display cloak, amid a multiyear federal investigation into tax components spicy his advertising and marketing campaign funds that sources acknowledged is ongoing.

The U.S. criminal skilled’s place of work greater than three years ago issued an well-known jury subpoena to the Illinois Assert Board of Elections pursuant to an “official prison investigation” for files on three advertising and marketing campaign funds managed by Jones. No costs had been filed in opposition to Jones, but two of us with data of the trouble acknowledged not too long ago the investigation changed into peaceable active.

A spokesperson for the U.S. criminal skilled’s place of work, Joseph Fitzpatrick, declined to comment.

Assert files covering the necessary quarter of 2025 display cloak regarded as one of Jones’ advertising and marketing campaign committees reported spending $35,000 on ethical charges to Cheronis & Parente, which describes itself on-line as a prison defense firm. Data display cloak the Jones’ advertising and marketing campaign has paid the guidelines firm nearly $200,000 since February 2024.

Chris Parente, a partner on the firm, declined to touch upon the expenditures by Jones’ advertising and marketing campaign fund and acknowledged his firm doesn’t completely work on prison cases.

A spokesperson for Jones, Sean Howard, also declined to comment and referred questions to Parente.

Jones, a Democrat who earlier this month changed into reelected as Calumet City’s mayor, has represented the twenty ninth District since 2011.

His advertising and marketing campaign fund moreover paid nearly $10,000 in ethical charges to Ed Mullen, amended state files display cloak.

Amongst the solutions that emerged along with the 2022 subpoena had been previously undisclosed info of a 2017 hearing on a complaint filed by two Calumet City aldermen with the Assert Board of Elections that alleged Jones spent political funds for non-public use.

The complaint cited a series of expenditures by Jones’ campaigns, along with for outings to Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs video games, and nearly $7,000 spent between 2014 and 2016 at a south suburban Hooters restaurant. The complaint also claimed payments to the Jones Foundation, a charity Jones essentially based that’s headed by his accomplice, had been illegally reported.

Calumet City Ald. James Patton, who filed the complaint along with Ald. DeAndre Tillman, this yr mounted an unsuccessful trouble to Jones for mayor, losing in the February Democratic well-known.

Following a hearing, the elections board dominated there changed into insufficient evidence to toughen most of the allegations and Jones changed into not fined.

Democratic election criminal skilled Michael Kasper, who represented Jones on the 2017 hearing, argued it changed into “not outlandish” to use that remarkable money at a Hooters across nearly three years.

Calumet City aldermen closing yr also questioned costs from Hooters, a Gordon Ramsay restaurant and a Cadillac lease on town’s municipal bank card assertion, even supposing one alderman on the time acknowledged it wasn’t certain who made the purchases.

Jones’ advertising and marketing campaign fund is peaceable reporting spending at Hooters, per the state advertising and marketing campaign filings launched closing week. The Jones for Assert Representative advertising and marketing campaign fund spent nearly $2,500 on the restaurant in the necessary three months of the yr. The solutions showed there changed into a fee to the advertising and marketing campaign fund for visits an average of about every 5 and a half of days.

An earlier version of this epic incorporated data on ethical spending that has been corrected by the Jones advertising and marketing campaign.

At the starting assign Printed: April 21, 2025 at 4:04 PM CDT