Mount Prospect settles with Ye Olde Town Inn for $6.5 million
Mount Prospect will pay Ye Olde Town Inn a $6.5 million settlement, the village board approved Tuesday night.
It officially puts an end to the federal racketeering lawsuit filed in 2008 by the inn's owner, Tod Curtis, who accused village officials and a local development company, Errol Oztekin's Oz Development, of conspiring to seize his land at 18 W. Busse Ave. and move forward with a downtown redevelopment plan without him.
His lawsuit named former Mayor Irvana Wilks, Village Manager Michael Janonis, Community Development Director William Cooney and village employees William Schroeder, Robert Roels and Frank Krupa as defendants.
Curtis alleged they formed an “ongoing enterprise and scheme” for nearly a decade to drive him out. He also charged village officials with “endless harassing inspections of the property” in retaliation for comments he made to local media and allowing Oztekin's Blues Bar to be built next door, even though they knew it would damage the Inn because the establishments share a wall.
Under the agreement, the village and its insurance consortium, HELP, will pay Curtis $6.5 million in the form of a cashier's check or wire transfer. The insurance consortium will pick up the vast majority — $6,060,998 — of the tab. Of the $6.5 million, $2 million will be allocated to Curtis' attorneys,
The trial was scheduled to begin on July 7, but the parties agreed to settle instead.
On Tuesday, Mount Prospect Mayor Arlene Juracek made a brief statement in which she confirmed that the parties have agreed to a nondisclosure and nondisparagement clause.
The agreement is subject to the Freedom of Information Act and will need to be made available upon written request, she said.
“Nonetheless, the individual defendants and the village officials will not be permitted to comment on the agreement,” she added. “I am permitted, however, to acknowledge that the settlement, as negotiated by our insurers, clearly recognizes that, by settling, neither the village nor any defendants admit to or have been found liable with respect to any of the allegations of the complaint.”
Curtis was unavailable for comment Tuesday evening.
• Staff writer Christopher Placek contributed to this report.