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Hundreds of thousands spent on Gliniewicz investigation

In the early days of the investigation into Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz's death, neighboring jurisdictions offered almost unfettered assistance of manpower and resources.

An investigation into costs to 50 suburban jurisdictions in the three weeks after Gliniewicz's Sept. 1 death showed those departments already had spent nearly $300,000 combined to provide help to the investigation or cover shifts of those who were deployed to assist. Most of those costs were attributed to overtime.

But now that the investigation is over with the revelation that Gliniewicz committed suicide and staged his death to look like he had been murdered, the ultimate costs might take months to determine and might end up being significantly higher than the initial tab.

Lake County Major Crimes Task Force spokesman Chris Covelli said more than 150 separate investigators put in more than 25,000 hours working the case and pursued more than 430 leads.

The forensic teams examined more than 250 pieces of evidence and submitted them to federal and local crime labs.

Investigators pored over more than 1,000 pages of financial documents, more than 6,000 text messages from Gliniewicz's cellphone and 40,000 emails, Covelli said.

Task force Cmdr. George Filenko was asked what it cost to unravel Gliniewicz's web of deception at Wednesday's news conference, but the longtime law enforcement officer said he couldn't venture a guess at this point.

"I don't have a cost for this investigation," Filenko said.

How much is Gliniewicz investigation costing taxpayers?

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