KANKAKEE — Attorneys for a former Iroquois County Public Health Department administrator charged with theft, forgery and official misconduct are asking a Kankakee County judge to prohibit prosecutors from introducing evidence or testimony at trial alleging she was seen gambling during work hours or indicating she does not support the “LGBTQIA+ agenda.”
Springfield attorneys Mark Wykoff Sr., of the Wykoff Law Office, and Daniel Fultz, of Brown, Hay & Stephens LLP, filed two motions in limine on Monday, Dec. 9, seeking an order to have such “irrelevant” evidence and testimony barred from the jury trial of Dee Ann Schippert.
The 57-year-old Schippert, of Watseka, appeared with her attorneys in a Kankakee County courtroom on Wednesday, Dec. 11, for a scheduling conference before Kankakee County Judge William Dickenson, who was reassigned the case after it was filed last spring in Iroquois County Circuit Court due to the recusal of Iroquois County Judges Michael Sabol and Kara Bartucci. According to online court records, the case was continued to 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 30, for another scheduling conference.
Dee Ann Schippert
Prosecuting the case for the Illinois Attorney General’s Office are Assistant Attorneys General Mara Somlo and Haley Bookhout, who charged Schippert on March 20 with 33 felonies, including eight counts of theft of government property by deception, eight counts of forgery and 17 counts of official misconduct.
The charges allege that Schippert, who has pleaded not guilty, stole more than $100,000 from the health department between May 31, 2020, and July 15, 2022. The charges allege she submitted fraudulent timesheets claiming hours she did not work, including overtime and backpay she never earned; made “false representations” to the board of health to obtain its approval to receive pay for 179 hours of overtime; and fraudulently used grant funds from a grant for COVID-19 contact tracing to “pay for her overtime.” Additionally, she allegedly committed “whistleblower retaliation” by firing an employee on June 15, 2022, after the staffer tipped off authorities to her conduct.
Schippert resigned more than a year prior to the charges being filed.
Schippert was appointed administrator upon the agency’s establishment on July 1, 2014, which coincided with the dissolution of the Ford-Iroquois Public Health Department, where she had worked the previous 22 years, starting as a home health care nurse in 1992 and then as community and school health coordinator since 2009.
In their motion in limine requesting the barring of evidence and testimony related to gambling, Schippert’s attorneys noted that, under her employment agreement with the board of health, she was required to work at least 40 hours per week, but the agreement did not specify the days of the week or hours of the day that her work should be performed. They also noted that the agreement did not state which activities she was permitted to perform or prohibited from performing during her “128 hours per week that constituted her personal and discretionary time.”
“It has been alleged by county employees that (Schippert’s) vehicle would be seen at Winnie’s gaming café and laundromat and/or Scotchmons East liquor store ‘during work hours,’” the motion said. “Because, however, (Schippert) did not have specifically delineated daily work hours but was only required to perform 40 hours of work during a seven-day period, such allegations constitute nothing more than speculative innuendo. … Permitting the state to present speculative evidence and/or elicit testimony that (Schippert) was engaged in vice, as opposed to being fully engaged in her duties, would serve no purpose other than to inflame the passions of the jury. Moreover, while the state of Illinois has recently transformed the recent vice of gambling into a now acceptable stream of revenue, there are still persons (prospective jurors) that view the same as either still illicit regardless of the state’s newfound position, and/or evidence of a lack of self-discipline and morality. Because such evidence has no bearing on a fact of consequence, this (court) should bar the admission of such evidence on the ground of relevance.”
In their other motion in limine, the defense attorneys noted that discovery tendered by the prosecution “would seem to indicate” that Schippert “was not an advocate of and/or a proponent for the LGBTQIA+ agenda,” but they said “such evidence has no bearing on a fact of consequence” and asked that it be barred from trial “on the ground of relevance.”
As she awaits trial, Schippert remains free on pretrial conditions.
The most serious of the 33 charges filed against her are two Class X felony counts of theft of government property, each punishable by six to 30 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections and up to a $25,000 fine. The other six theft counts are Class 1 felonies, each punishable by four to 15 years in prison and up to a $25,000 fine, while all eight forgery charges and all 17 official misconduct charges are Class 3 felonies, each punishable by between two to five years in prison and up to a $25,000 fine.