The Charles Rippinger Co., specializing in mortgages, had become quite successful by 1925.

Home buyers would sign notes that then were sold by the Elgin company to local investors.

Rippinger advertised that it was "governed by a code of ethics dealing only with fairness to all concerned."

Except that it wasn't - and it didn't.

According to E.C. "Mike" Alft in "Elgin: Days Gone By," Sam T. Peterson, a former president of the Elgin Association of Commerce, and his brother-in-law Walter C. Rippinger misappropriated funds.

Two days before Christmas, the business declared bankruptcy.

"Law offices today were a pitiful sight as elderly people grasped at hopes of regaining their life savings," one newspaper account reported. "The situation, lawyers say, is appalling and goes on record as the greatest financial tragedy in the history of the city."

More than 1,100 claims were filed on losses of more than $1 million.

The mortgage lender's closing was something else: a scandal.

The losses rippled through the community for years - in some cases, leading to suicide.

History is replete with scandals big and small.

Eight Chicago White Sox accused of throwing the 1919 World Series was perhaps the most famous scandal in baseball history.

For the White House, the president's relationship with Monica Lewinsky was as scandalous as they come.

By definition, scandals are more than crimes or misdeeds causing outrage.

For the family or community or even nation in which they occur, scandals shake the foundation and come with a moral aftershock.

With its rural and suburban groundings, the Fox Valley is not a hotbed for scandal.

But over the past century, "We've had our share," noted Nancy Fike, administrator of the McHenry County Historical Society Museum.

Locals were shocked in 1927 when State's Attorney Alford Pouse fled the state amid rumors he was part of a countywide liquor law-violation conspiracy.

In the 1960s, it was an alleged Fox River Grove mobster who made a splash - with the Illinois Crime Commission.

And in the 1980s, the case of a schoolteacher fired for having a child out of wedlock served as the basis for a made-for-TV movie.

Following are some of the more notable local scandals over the past 100 years.

By 1924, the free flow of booze through McHenry County resorts dotting the Fox River had become a political issue.

Rumor held that Prohibition liquor was trucked along Route 14 with a wink from police, according to accounts in "McHenry County in the Twentieth Century."

Heading into the election that year for county attorney - the precursor to state's attorney - the Women's Christian Temperance Union cried that not enough was being done to prosecute liquor-law violators.

Alford Pouse, a McHenry city attorney, won the office. One newspaper ascribed the victory to "the support of the dry law enforcement element."

But Pouse did little to stem the alcoholic tide, and, by 1927, seemed to have been swept up in it.

On Aug. 6, federal authorities conducted a series of raids. According to "McHenry County in the Twentieth Century," Pouse raced to the courthouse and filed 56 slot-machine and Prohibition complaints against those who were arrested.

One "dry advocate" was quoted as saying conditions in McHenry County were "rotten" and that the state's attorney was getting $10 a barrel for beer sold in the county.

With Pouse fearing he would be denounced as being part of a countywide liquor conspiracy, he fled.

Only his wife and mother knew he was living in Vineland, N. J.

Organized crime and gambling had become widespread enough in McHenry County by the 1960s that the Illinois Crime Commission convened hearings and called in witnesses to Woodstock.

Held June 22 and 23, the probe involved more than a dozen people - including then-Sheriff Edward Dowd.

Among others, the inquiry focused on Louis Cernocky of Fox River Grove.

Cernocky ran the Crystal Palace dance hall and Picnic Grove grounds.

He also was linked to the mob.

Writing about Cernocky in 1964 in the Chicago Daily News, Mike Royko said that when mobster Tony Accardo's daughter was married in April 1960, Accardo was a passenger in the Cadillac delivering her to the wedding. Cernocky was behind the wheel.

Appearing before the crime commission, Cernocky had little to say.

Questioned about his alleged role as "boss" of slot machines and jukeboxes, as well as about mob business partner Joe "Black Joe" Amato, Cernocky took the Fifth.

He would do so more than 35 times.

The hearings were successful at highlighting local mob influence, but the outfit continued to operate - albeit a little less conspicuously.

In January 1982, the Hawthorn Elementary School District in Marengo fired teacher Jeanne Eckmann.

School officials claimed Eckmann was insubordinate and negligent.

But there was something else - a charge of immorality.

Eckmann had borne a son out of wedlock. The teacher maintained she had been raped and kept the child rather than have an abortion.

Among Eckmann's "failures," it was noted by the school board that "your conduct in becoming pregnant outside the state of marriage has diminished your ability to teach and the ability of your students to learn their lessons from you. You are cautioned not to engage in such conduct in the future."

An independent arbitrator several months later overturned the firing. Eckmann also filed a $16.7 million suit against the district.

The McHenry County Historical Society's Fike said the saga led to a made-for-TV movie - and another scandal for the county.

The same year, a double murder rocked Elgin.

On the morning of May 8, off-duty Elgin police officer Herschell Glenn murdered James Wright and Lillian Final after accosting the young couple in Lords Park.

Wright, 18, and Final, 20, were on their first date. Glenn had tried, unsuccessfully, to pick up another young woman earlier in the day.

Forcing Wright into the trunk of the couple's Lincoln, Glenn drove Final to a secluded, east-side factory warehouse.

There, he raped and murdered her. Wright was driven to a separate location and shot seven times.

One of the few questions Glenn, then 24, asked after he was picked up was whether the arrest would affect his job as a police officer.

The victims' families sued the city of Elgin, eventually settled and split $1.5 million.

For 23 years, David Reinert held the job of Elgin Township supervisor.

For 18 of them, he stole the township blind.

All told, Reinert's thefts tallied at least $557,000.

Reinert convinced trustees it was better to borrow money periodically than to disturb his "high-yield" investments.

The "yield" turned out to be his own on accounts he systematically drained.

In 1993, Reinert pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud and tax evasion and a state charge of felony theft. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

In addition to its funds, Reinert stole the public's trust for years to come.

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