County knew of employee's criminal background 5 months before firing

Cook County administrators had criminal reports on a troubled patronage employee from both state police and the FBI months before President Todd Stroger has acknowledged receiving them, Cook County administrators admitted Thursday.

On Monday, Stroger told WTTW's Carol Marin that the county received the Illinois State Police background check just last week.

But Thursday, Cook County Human Resources Director Joseph Sova told reporters that the FBI background check arrived Nov. 20 and the full state police report arrived Feb. 11.

Tony Cole, 29, was asked to report only convictions, not arrests, and he wrote that he had battery and disorderly conduct incidents in Baton Rouge, La., Sova said. When the FBI report arrived, it detailed arrests, but not convictions, on such charges in Louisiana, and convictions on such charges in Georgia, said Sova. The Georgia convictions were mistaken for the Louisiana incidents Cole had self-reported, Sova said.

"The location codes on these reports are very, very small," said Sova.

Cole was fired for not reporting any Georgia convictions, Sova said.

Aside from the mix-up on the FBI report, Sova's dating of the state report receipt differs greatly from the picture painted by the administration of firing Cole soon after they received any criminal report that differed from Cole's self-reported incidents. Even by the February receipt date of the state report, county administrators kept Cole employed for months after, until April 9 - the day before a newspaper report on Cole's criminal background was set to run.

They also kept Cole employed after Stroger was personally advised of CFO Donna Dunnings bailing Cole out of Cook County Jail in January on a violation of a protective order charge. She was accompanied to the jail by Cook County spokesman Gene Mullins, a boyhood friend of Stroger's, administrators have confirmed.

Additionally, while state police Lt. Scott Compton confirmed the agency did respond Feb. 11 to an inquiry from the county on their report, the police say they first sent the county, through the regular mail, their full report Dec. 20. Because they send such reports regular mail, they could not confirm if it was received at that time.