Lake County candidate Carbone has criminal past under different name
Lake County Board candidate Michael Carbone has a criminal history, but not by the name he’s known in his capacity as an elected public official.
Carbone, 39, of Round Lake, has been a Grayslake Elementary District 46 board member since 2009. He also is a Republican seeking a Lake County Board seat against Democratic incumbent Terry Wilke in the Nov. 6 election.
Lake County circuit court records show Carbone was Michael R. Jorudd of unincorporated Ingleside when he pleaded guilty to reckless driving in Fox Lake as part of a negotiated deal on Aug. 8, 2006. He was sentenced to 30 days in the county jail and fined $1,500.
“I never had to do one day of the 30 days of that jail time,” Carbone said Thursday.
Jorudd entered a negotiated guilty plea on a criminal trespass to property charge on April 29, 2004, according to Lake County court records. He received 30 hours of public service.
Carbone didn’t give an answer on whether he’s even been arrested or convicted of a crime on a Daily Herald candidate questionnaire for the Republican county board primary last spring or the general election this fall.
When initially asked about the omissions, Carbone acknowledged previous arrests but didn’t say he was known as Jorudd when they occurred.
“It never really entered my mind,” he said.
The Daily Herald began asking political candidates about any criminal histories after the media’s failure to thoroughly investigate Chicago pawnbroker Scott Lee Cohen before he became the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2010.
After Cohen won the nomination, the public learned he had been accused of abusing his ex-wife and holding a knife to the throat of a former girlfriend, which led to criminal charges that eventually were dropped. Cohen bowed to political pressure and quit the ticket.
On May 4, 2012, the Lake County state’s attorney’s office filed a lawsuit against “defendant Michael Jorudd (now known as) Michael Carbone” regarding “an abandoned, vacant, unsafe and dilapidated residential structure” at 35089 N. Rosewood Ave. in unincorporated Ingleside.
Jorudd is the listed property taxpayer at the Ingleside address and at 959 S. Arlington Drive in Round Lake, according to Lake County records.
Prosecutor Lisa Stalter filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss the case against Carbone on July 20, saying he obtained a permit to remodel the structure and that an inspection showed it no longer was dilapidated, unsafe or dangerous.
Illinois Secretary of State spokesman Dave Druker said Thursday that a driver’s license was issued to Michael R.A. Carbone on March 7, 2009. He was elected with 12 write-in votes to the District 46 board with the name Michael Carbone Jorudd in April 2009.
Carbone said he legally changed his name in Lake County before the 2009 election. He said he went from Jorudd to Michael Robert Askeland Carbone.
He said his biological father died when he was 1 and he was adopted by his grandfather. He said he took his stepfather’s name, Jorudd.
Carbone said he eventually learned his biological father was named Askeland. He said he combined Askeland and his grandfather’s name, Carbone, to honor them and not to hide from something.
On the District 46 board, Carbone is known for calling attention to questionable spending and school officials who were involved in ethics investigations this year. He also publicly questioned the hiring of then-board President Mary Garcia’s husband for a Grayslake Middle School maintenance job in 2010.
Carbone said he knows he’s made some political enemies during his time on the District 46 board.
“I never knew it could get this low, but politics are dirty,” Carbone said.