Breuder attorney: Hamilton's 'political charade is over'
The attorney for fired College of DuPage President Robert Breuder released a statement Monday savaging former board Chairwoman Kathy Hamilton, declaring her "political charade is over."
"In her wake and through ill-advised decisions, in her short time at COD, Hamilton used her political office to instigate malicious and unfounded attacks against Dr. Breuder designed to destroy his reputation," attorney Martin A. Dolan said in the statement.
"Her poor decisions were fueled by a misguided political ambition resulting in arrogant abuses of power," it read. "Unfortunately for the taxpayers of DuPage County, her resignation was not soon enough, the damages she and her personally funded 'Clean Slate' cohorts have caused will be long lasting and costly."
The statement was reminiscent of the allegations in a federal lawsuit filed in October by Breuder, alleging that Hamilton and her supporters ran a "malicious and wrongful scheme" to sully Breuder's reputation while firing him contrary to his contractual and constitutional rights.
Breuder's lawsuit, one of three filed in federal court by fired COD employees, seeks $2 million in damages, and seeks damages individually from Hamilton and members of the Clean Slate party she put together. Those trustees - Deanne Mazzochi, Frank Napolitano and Charles Bernstein - were elected in April amid a furor over a $763,000 severance package given to hasten Breuder's departure from the college amid complaints of reckless spending on food and drink and perks under Breuder's watch.
He was fired in October, five months before his resignation - initially billed as a retirement - was to take place.
Breuder's lawsuit, though, claimed Hamilton made no bones about her higher political aspirations from the time she was first elected in April 2013. The suit says she told Breuder and Thomas Glaser, a COD senior vice president who was fired in September, that she got on the COD board "to attain higher political office." She also told them she would "achieve that goal by finding something wrong with the college, specifically by using her purported experience as a CPA to find irregularities in the college's finances and spending," the suit said.
In the Monday statement, Dolan says Hamilton used her own money "to back her agenda" by duping voters that she was a reformer. "Yet, when you peel back the rhetoric and examine the facts it is evident Dr. Breuder and others did nothing wrong," the statement says.
The attorney also notes that Breuder awaits the "monumental task of undoing the significant damage he has suffered as a result of the meritless allegations against him."