Residential tax cheats cost Cook County millions

A suspended Harvey police officer is among at least 8,171 Cook County property owners who wrongly received tax breaks over the past decade on homes they didn't live in - costing more than $24 million, a burden other taxpayers had to make up.

Lemuel Askew - a Harvey cop for 30 years who's awaiting trial on charges he bought stolen tools and other goods - is among the owners of 34,804 homes who got property-tax breaks they weren't eligible for, records examined by the Chicago Sun-Times show.

Askew got homeowner exemptions on seven homes, the records show. Under Illinois law, those tax breaks - which knocks $7,000 off a home's assessed value - are only for a single, owner-occupied residence.

Ninety-five percent of the property owners who got tax breaks they weren't entitled to got the homeowner exemption, according to records from Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios's office. That's the most common type of tax break for owner-occupied homes in Illinois. It's also one that the assessor's office automatically renews every year.

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