Lake County Gazette

FOX LAKE — Fox Lake police officer Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz’s widow, who is reportedly under investigation for her alleged involvement in an embezzlement scheme he was accused of orchestrating, is likely to receive a hefty survivor pension that could reap her millions in benefits following her husband’s death.

This is just another turn in the Gliniewicz saga that began when the veteran police officer was found dead of a gunshot wound in a wooded area near Fox Lake after reporting to dispatch that he was in pursuit of three men. A massive manhunt was undertaken that yielded no suspects before it was eventually determined Gliniewicz had staged his suicide to appear to be a homicide.

Investigators with the Lake County Major Crime Task Force harvested text and Facebook messages sent by Gliniewicz implicating him in a scheme in which he was alleged to have embezzled thousands of dollars from a Fox Lake Police Department youth program, which was under investigation around the time of his death.

In late September, before the suicide ruling came out, Fox Lake's Police Pension Board began considering pension benefits for Gliniewicz’s widow, Melodie Gliniewicz, who, according to reports by WLS-TV and WGN-TV, is also now reportedly under investigation along with the couple’s son for participating in the embezzlement scheme.

Laura J. Goodloe, the Lake County Pension Fund lawyer, released a statement today saying the board has not yet received a request for survivor benefits, but that Gliniewicz’s family is eligible for survivor benefits and would need to undergo an evidentiary hearing conducted by the Fox Lake Police Pension Board.

It is unclear how Gliniewicz’s pension will play out; but because Gliniewicz committed suicide before being charged with any crime, it appears his widow will be entitled to at least a diminished portion of his pension.

“The only thing that takes away a pension from a police officer in the state of Illinois is conviction of a job-related or service-related felony,” Richard Reimer, an attorney with Reimer Dobrovolny & Carlson specializing in police pension law, told the Lake County Gazette. “There is never going to be a conviction because he is no longer with us. He can’t be indicted and allegations don’t count.”

Reimer said even if rumors of a criminal investigation into Gliniewicz’s family are true and a conviction were to occur, Gliniewicz’s widow is still likely to receive his pension benefits.

“Even if she was convicted of something, I don’t think that causes her to lose her rights to his pension as a survivor,” Reimer said. “Maybe the court of public opinion thinks to the contrary, and I get that, but I don’t think there is any grounds to deny her her survivor rights.”

The payout to Gliniewicz’s widow would be worth at least 75 percent of his salary, Reimer said. That would entitle her to more than $61,000 in the first year of the benefit plan with a 3 percent annual increase in payout each year that could see the pension payment increase to more than $136,000 over the course of the next three decades.

A public records search conducted by the Lake County Gazette uncovered that Gliniewicz only ever contributed $142,000 to the pension program throughout his 29-year career as a police officer, which even under the reduced payment schedule at 75 percent would be exhausted in less than three years.

“That is representative of a problem that especially police and fire pensions across Illinois are having now where they are just chronically underfunded and the amount of benefits that they are scheduled to pay out far, far outpaces what the funds have in them now,” Matthew Dietrich, executive editor of Reboot Illinois, said. “That is the result of years and years of underfunding.”

Fiscal records show the Fox Lake police pension fund has been consistently underfunded for at least the past 10 years and is currently underfunded by $4.6 million. While each Fox Lake policeman contributes $668 per month towards their pension, Fox Lake taxpayers are contributing $1,650 per month to each officer's pension plan.

Dietrich said the situation is indicative of a much larger problem with public pensions in Illinois.

“Mainly that has come from state government that has sweetened these public safety pensions, and has not given local cities and towns any mechanism for paying for it,” Dietrich said. “They order them to make the pension sweeter, but they force the municipalities to pay for this on their own. Municipalities have not been able to keep up, and it has been a big problem that is facing a lot of them.”