Carpentersville man in hot water for suing judges, insulting court
A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Carpentersville man against Kane County judges, attorneys and the Kane County Bar Association after he was sanctioned for attempting to practice law without a license.
Now, Robert Sperlazzo, 62, faces contempt of court charges for filing a rash of lawsuits and supposed court orders and calling the 16th Judicial Circuit a “kangaroo court,” according to court documents.
Sperlazzo is due in court on Oct. 18 before Val Gunnarrson, a judge brought in from another circuit because Sperlazzo has sued several judges in Kane County.
If found guilty, fines and jail time are possible for Sperlazzo, who was chairman of the Fox Valley Citizen for Legal Immigration, a group that supports cracking down on illegal immigrants living in Carpentersville.
Prosecutors say Sperlazzo, also referred to as “Robert-Dale of the House of Sperlazzo” in court documents, crossed the line when he sued on Dec. 7, 2011, claiming that the court had no jurisdiction over him and accusing a judge of conspiring against him and ordering his arrest.
“The filing of (the lawsuit) was disruptive to the administration of justice and deceitful in that the document, without legal authority to do so, purports to order the Kane County sheriff to act on the order,” according to court papers filed by prosecutors. “(Sperlazzo) engaged in conduct to embarrass, hinder or obstruct the court in its administration of justice or derogate from its authority of dignity or bring the administration of law into disrepute.”
Sperlazzo also was ordered by a judge on Jan. 26, 2012, to stop filing documents that were supposedly “court orders.”
Court documents show that four days later, Sperlazzo filed a “judicial notice.”
Judge F. Keith Brown recently dismissed the lawsuit filed by Sperlazzo against several other judges, along with Patrick Kinnally, former president of the Kane County Bar Association. The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning Sperlazzo cannot file it again in the future.
Sperlazzo’s attorney, Herbert Hill, declined to comment Monday.
Sperlazzo initially got into hot water after the Kane County Bar Association sued him in early 2011, arguing that an attorney in December 2010 observed him at the Kane County Recorder’s Office talking to two men about a “land patent process” that Sperlazzo claimed could let them keep their property even if they were in foreclosure.
Sperlazzo was accused of telling the men to pay him in cash and not talk to another lawyer or the process would be ruined.
He did not face criminal charges in the matter, but a judge issued an injunction against him.