Giannoulias calls for Kane County audit over unreported DUI for man involved in crash that killed deputy

Four years before police said he caused a crash that killed a DeKalb County sheriff’s deputy, Nathan Sweeney pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and having 44 grams of heroin in his car — an offense that, if properly reported to the secretary of state by Kane County authorities, should have led to the revocation of his driver’s license and the loss of his commercial driving privileges.

But notification of those convictions never got to the secretary of state’s office. Instead, Sweeney had struck a plea deal with Kane County prosecutors that masked the convictions, a practice prohibited by both state and federal law, according to Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias. He’s now asking for a federal audit of the county.

“Had the charges of his first DUI and possession of a controlled substance not been masked, his CDL would have been disqualified for life,” Giannoulias wrote in a letter sent last week to the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that was obtained by Capitol News Illinois.

Giannoulias called on the federal agency that regulates transportation issues including trucking to audit Kane County to determine whether other convictions have been masked and if the practice is still being used.

“He should have been denied his ability to get behind the wheel — and would have — if the legal process was properly administered,” Giannoulias said in the letter.

Sweeney, 44, was behind the wheel of a Kenworth semitruck on March 28 when he struck the rear of DeKalb County Sheriff’s Deputy Christina Musil’s squad car parked on the shoulder of the road, according to a state police report. Musil, a mother of three young children and veteran who served in Afghanistan, died from her injuries.

After her death, Giannoulias’ office began looking into the status of Sweeney’s CDL.

In February 2020, Illinois State Police working in Kane County stopped Sweeney in his personal vehicle after they observed erratic driving. They found heroin in Sweeney’s possession, and he later tested positive for heroin. He was charged with DUI, heroin possession, improper lane usage and operating an uninsured motor vehicle. A year later, he entered a guilty plea under which the conviction was withheld from his record for 18 months to allow him to complete the terms of probation, including attending counseling.

Upon satisfying those conditions, prosecutors allowed Sweeney to withdraw his guilty plea on the DUI count, and they dismissed the case. The plea agreement did allow Sweeney’s conviction on the felony drug possession count to stand. Under Illinois law, convictions must be reported to the secretary of state within five days.

Jamie Mosser, who became Kane County State’s Attorney in 2020, stated in an email to CNI that her office approved Sweeney’s plea agreement, citing “case circumstances that could have affected the office’s ability to obtain a conviction on all counts.”

On Friday, she offered a slightly more detailed response.

“Contrary to the allegations made in that letter, the decisions regarding the case were based upon a number of factors that were unrelated to (Sweeney’s) Commercial Driver’s License,” the release states. “We welcome any review or audit of the 2020 case and our practices by the Secretary of State and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, which will show that the allegations against my Office are without merit. I continue to offer my deepest sympathy to the family of Deputy Musil for their loss.”

Giannoulias contended that the 2021 conviction should have been reported to his office because a motor vehicle was involved. But the day after the plea, prosecutors and the defense agreed to amend the record to state that a box indicating that a motor vehicle was involved was checked in error.

Kane County Judge Salvatore LoPiccolo signed the order. That conviction, too, went unreported.

By Oct. 21, 2022, Sweeney completed the terms of his plea deal and withdrew his guilty plea on the DUI. Prosecutors dismissed the case.

Within the space of the next year, Sweeney was involved into two more crashes, one in Kane County and one in DeKalb County. He paid a $164 fine after pleading guilty to following too closely in the Kane County case, but was not ticketed in the DeKalb County case, in which he backed into a vehicle, according to a lawsuit by that car’s driver that is still pending.

After the March 28, 2024, fatal collision along Illinois Route 23 in DeKalb County, Sweeney was ticketed at the scene for failing to reduce speed to avoid an accident, operating an uninsured motor vehicle and improper lane usage. Later, upon completion of an investigation, the DeKalb County state’s attorney’s office charged him with three counts of aggravated DUI drugs causing death, and reckless homicide.

Sweeney remains free until trial, though he is barred from operating a motor vehicle and required to undergo drug testing. Efforts to reach him were unsuccessful.

Sweeney’s initial refusal to submit to testing for drugs at the time of the crash caused his CDL and Illinois license to be suspended for one year, but Giannoulis’ office administratively revoked Sweeney’s license to prevent it from being automatically reinstated. The possibility still exists that Sweeney could get his commercial driving privileges restored. That possibility would have been eliminated if the previous DUI conviction and drug possession would have been properly reported, according to Giannoulis.