Carpentersville president: Humpfer is off the board

Carpentersville Trustee Paul Humpfer says his misdemeanor battery conviction will not lead to his removal from the village board.

The village president, though, has other ideas.

Humpfer, 44, was convicted Wednesday of four counts of domestic battery.

Jacqueline Humpfer accused her husband of hitting her on the legs with a baseball bat during an argument at their home in May 2007.

Humpfer, who said he would appeal the conviction, faces a maximum 364 days in Kane County jail.

"I am not going to step down from the village board unless I am forced to," said Humpfer, who is also the village's audit and finance commission chairman.

And state law does not seem to compel Humpfer to resign his trustee position.

Illinois statute does disqualify any person convicted of a felony, bribery, perjury or other infamous crime from holding an elected office.

Humpfer's misdemeanors do not fall in that range.

Village President Bill Sarto, however, said he considers Humpfer's seat available.

"I hereby deem former Trustee Paul Humpfer's board position to be vacant due to his conviction of an infamous crime," Sarto said in an e-mail Thursday morning to Village Manager Craig Anderson.

Municipal attorney Ronald Roeser said the conviction does not satisfy the definition of an infamous crime.

A section of Illinois law defining infamous crimes has been repealed, but it previously considered crimes such as bribery, forgery and incest to be infamous, Roeser said.

Roeser also said common law defines an infamous crime as a crime against nature, one punishable by more than a year in a penitentiary, or a felony.

"Under any of those constructions of the term, this is not an infamous crime," Roeser said. "It would not require him to step down."

Sarto said his decision to declare Humpfer's seat vacant was based on information he received from two Kane County state's attorney investigators and attorneys from the Illinois attorney general's office.

"They have all said clearly that the beating of your wife with a baseball bat is an infamous crime," Sarto wrote. "It also can be construed as a violation of his oath."

But First Assistant State's Attorney Clint Hull said his office would not comment on how the conviction would affect Humpfer's status as trustee.

The state's attorney, however, confirmed his office is looking into Humpfer's residency, an issue Sarto has raised and harped on for more than a year.

As recently as Tuesday, during the village board meeting, Sarto questioned Humpfer on his living situation.

Humpfer did not answer.

Sarto claims Humpfer no longer lives in the village, as a result of his domestic difficulties.

Humpfer says he still maintains residency in the village.

The state's attorney's office has not yet made a determination or offered an opinion as to the accuracy of Sarto's residency allegations, State's Attorney John Barsanti said in a statement.

Sarto's latest allegations against Humpfer are not the first he has brought to the state's attorney.

With Humpfer running for re-election last spring, Sarto resurrected an 18-month-old incident and brought it to the state's attorney's for investigation.

In that incident, Jacqueline Humpfer had sought and received an order of protection against her husband.

The state's attorney's office determined no charges were warranted in that case and no charges were ever filed.

Sarto also previously threatened to remove Humpfer -- and Trustee Judy Sigwalt -- from their audit and finance commission posts over a proposal cracking down on illegal immigrants in the village.