Downstate lawmaker indicted over allegations of kickbacks, misusing campaign funds

Downstate state Rep. Carol Ammons, an 11-year veteran of the Illinois House, has been charged with orchestrating a scheme to receive cash kickbacks through illegal payments from her campaign account and local nonprofits for which she helped secure state grants.

The indictment, brought by a federal grand jury late Tuesday, outlines an alleged conspiracy also involving Ammons’ husband, Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons, and her daughter, who last month was indicted on separate federal charges alleging she fraudulently collected expanded COVID-era unemployment benefits.

While daughter Titianna Ammons was not charged in Tuesday’s indictment, prosecutors allege she was the conduit for some of the kickbacks, including overpayments from her mother’s “Friends of Carol Ammons” campaign account for work she didn’t do.

The indictment also alleges Carol Ammons, a Democrat from Urbana, used her official position to direct state grant money to three separate nonprofits that paid her daughter, one of which made Titianna Ammons a program director after the state representative helped draft her employment contract.

In all, prosecutors allege Ammons and her daughter “received financial benefits in excess of $100,000” beginning in 2017 through roughly 2023. But Ammons’ legal issues deepened in May 2024 when she allegedly lied to an FBI agent about her daughter being paid out of state grant funds through one of the nonprofits Titianna Ammons was affiliated with.

In the year after the FBI approached the lawmaker, prosecutors allege she and her husband engaged in obstruction of justice with at least one “potential witness.” According to the indictment, Aaron Ammons took the lead on buffering his family from the ongoing federal investigation, including instructing one potential witness to “muddy the waters” with the FBI “to obstruct its ability to trace the illegal cash payments to Carol Ammons.”

On Wednesday, Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch stopped short of calling on Ammons to resign from her seat but said he is temporarily removing her from “any and all House Democratic Caucus meetings, from all House committees, and from accessing Speaker's Office staff and resources.” He also said he’s directed staff to “review the budget to determine whether any funds need to be paused or reconsidered.”

“The allegations in this indictment are extremely serious,” Welch said in a statement. “Every person under our system of justice is entitled to the presumption of innocence and due process. The U.S. Attorney will lay out evidence in court, where Representative Ammons will have the chance to defend herself against the allegations.”

House Minority Leader Tony McCombie called on Ammons to “resign immediately” and criticized Welch for not doing the same.

“Leadership means holding your own members accountable, not waiting until political pressure becomes unavoidable,” The Savanna Republican said in a statement.

The Ammons indictment follows last week’s pressure campaign on now-former state Rep. Harry Benton to resign after an internal ethics investigation into undisclosed behavior. Benton, a Plainfield Democrat, resigned late Friday.