McHenry Co. on hook for nearly $25,000 in Cumbee defense

John Cumbee's latest failed effort to win a new trial on allegations he killed an ex-girlfriend will cost McHenry County taxpayers nearly $25,000.

A judge today awarded $24,343 in legal fees to Woodstock attorney Daniel Mengeling for his work representing Cumbee, a former Fox Lake police officer who last year was denied a third murder trial in the 1992 slaying.

Though recognizing that the fee was high for a court-appointed lawyer, Judge Sharon Prather said the case was a special circumstance that created a large amount of legal work, in part because it is more than 16 years old and had been through two previous trials.

Mengeling said he spent about 137 hours on the case. That would place his hourly fee at about $177, a low figure for a murder case, according to several other criminal defense attorneys polled today.

The McHenry County State's Attorney's office, however, objected to the fee request, saying Mengeling had not provided the county with any details of the amount of time he spent on the case, what work he did in that time and what costs, if any, he incurred while representing Cumbee. The office may file a motion asking Prather to reconsider her decision, said Thomas Carroll, chief of the state's attorney's civil division.

The fees, Carroll notes, amount to about half of what some county prosecutors make in an entire year and far exceed the standard $5,000 fee awarded to court-appointed lawyers in most felony cases.

"It may be that Mr. Mengeling deserves what he got paid," Carroll said. "But then that speaks to the fact that lawyers in our office are severely underpaid."

It was Prather who last month fined Mengeling $1,000 for making what she determined to be baseless claims against the state's attorney's office in some of his filings seeking another trial for Cumbee.

That $1,000 was not included in Mengeling's fee request, but he won't be paying it himself, either. Last week, about 30 county lawyers gathered at a Crystal Lake restaurant to hold a fundraiser on Mengeling's behalf. They raised about $1,200, Mengeling said.

Cumbee, in the meantime, sent a letter to the McHenry County Circuit Clerk this month indicating he is not giving up his pursuit of a new trial. The 49-year-old is serving a life sentence after being convicted of killing former girlfriend Kathleen Twarowski, 21, in his Spring Grove home.