Lake County Gazette

Denise Rotheimer, a victims’ rights advocate and former Illinois House candidate, has relocated to Florida, saying she fled the state after threats of arrest related to a decade-long legal battle involving her family’s estate.

Rotheimer, known for her grassroots advocacy on behalf of sexual assault victims and her work in legislative reform, left Illinois in September 2024.

“There was just no point staying anymore,” Rotheimer told the Lake County Gazette. “It doesn't matter who you elect. Republican or Democrat — they're all self-interested. Nobody represents the people.”

Her departure from Illinois was not a matter of political disillusionment alone — it was deeply personal. 

“This wasn’t just moving,” Rotheimer said. “It was escaping. I was being threatened with arrest.”

Rotheimer claims that Illinois’ court system devastated her family, financially and emotionally, and contributed to the deaths of both her grandfather and father. 

Rotheimer, a licensed therapist and trauma specialist, described how her grandfather, a Holocaust refugee who built a multimillion-dollar real estate business after arriving in the U.S. in 1952, became entangled in a guardianship dispute in 2012.

“He came to this country with a sixth-grade education, didn’t speak the language, and amassed a $15 million real estate empire,” Rotheimer said. “And in his golden years, he was ripped apart by a politically corrupt court system.”

Rotheimer's grandfather once said something during a human rights investigation that stuck with her.

“He said, ‘I escaped the Nazis, but I couldn’t escape the medical system,’” she said. “That was in the Illinois Human Rights Commission report.”

Rotheimer alleges that lawyers and court-appointed officials exploited her grandfather’s estate, billing over $1 million in two years while keeping him under what she insists was an unnecessary limited guardianship.

“He was fully competent,” she said. “He should never have been in any kind of guardianship.”

Rotheimer alleges that the legal battle over the estate continued and ultimately led to her father's financial ruin and death from a heart attack in 2023, which she attributes to the stress caused by the prolonged legal fight. 

“My father was supposed to inherit at least $6 million,” she said. “They kept every penny from him. They starved him into submission.” 

When she posted about it on LinkedIn — including a photo from what she described as an in-chambers court proceeding — she said the court threatened her with contempt under a rule prohibiting courtroom photography.

“But we weren’t even in a courtroom,” she said. “They want to arrest me. They want to put me in jail. That judge would put me in jail — given the chance, he would.”

Rotheimer believes her public commentary about the case and court has made her a target.

“There’s a court order that says nobody can disparage the court,” she said. “But I’m not a party to the case. And even if I was — what happened to the First Amendment?”

Rotheimer said she and her family faced threats, including potential jail time for speaking out.  

“They threaten to arrest me for trying to expose that,” she said. “They've threatened my daughter. They threatened my brothers. That's why we had to leave.” 

She finally sold three homes — hers, her mother’s and a family property in McHenry — and relocated her family to Florida by September 2024.

“I couldn’t save my dad. Couldn’t save them,” she said. “So we moved.”

Even as she tries to settle into a new life, Rotheimer said she is still haunted by the injustice her family faced.

“We weren’t handing out envelopes. We weren’t rubbing elbows,” she said.  

Rotheimer’s decision to leave Illinois came after a decades-long fight for justice. She began her advocacy after her daughter was raped at age 11.

“The prosecutor only wanted to give the rapist three years probation,” she said. “I said, ‘Second chances? What about my daughter’s chance at justice?’”

Outraged by the system’s failure, she took matters into her own hands. 

Over the course of 16 years, Rotheimer successfully advocated for three laws in Illinois, including Jasmine’s Law. 

Signed into law in 2010, Jasmine's Law strengthens protections for victims of sex crimes—especially minors—by doubling sentences for violent sex offenders when alcohol is involved. The law also provides victim support services.

She also passed a Crime Victim Rights Sign-Off Sheet and a Complainants' Bill of Rights for those who report misconduct by state officials.

“I did all my work out of pocket as a mother whose child was raped,” Rotheimer said. “I had people coming to me because I was trying to pass laws, which I did. I passed three laws and they were coming to me for help because nobody else was doing the work that I was providing.” 

Despite her impact, Rotheimer said she never received the institutional support she needed — and paid a personal price.

“My whole 30s and 40s were spent advocating, at my own expense,” she said. 

Later she became a licensed therapist working for DuPage County. 

“I had the best job in the world,” Rotheimer said. “DuPage County Health Department was in a dream position. I did very well there. I had a home, but left it all to my family and started a new life (in Florida).” 

In 2017, Rotheimer accused former state senator Ira Silverstein, a Democrat of Chicago, of sexual harassment in 2017, which led to the appointment of a long-vacant legislative inspector general post. 

Though the inspector general later found Silverstein behaved inappropriately but did not harass her, Rotheimer’s case spotlighted systemic issues within the legislature. 

Silverstein opted to not run for reelection in 2019. 

Rotheimer also came to the defense of an sexual harassment accuser of former state representative Lou Lang, a Democrat from Skokie and close confidant to former house speaker Michael Madigan who was convicted in February 2025 of bribery in a long spanning corruption case.  

Rotheimer said Illinois' political system enables bad actors while silencing whistleblowers like herself. 

“When you're out there, trying to expose it, who gets hammered? Who gets shut down? The whistleblower,” Rotheimer said. “This is why people don't see anything and I get it.” 

Rotheimer herself ran for Illinois House District 62 twice. In 2014 she was removed from the ballot and in 2017 she withdrew her candidacy prior to the 2018 race.  

She said despite being complimented for her legislative knowledge during interviews, she was never selected for key endorsements.

“They're going to go with the person that's going to do their bidding if this is how it works,” she said. “So they interview candidates, they get a feel for who is going to kowtow, who's going to bail them and who's going to go by their playbook. Not somebody who's really going to, you know, do the bidding of the people.”

She said she left the political scene disillusioned. 

"That's why we get these kinds of characters in these positions, and why there is no change—even though the player changes, the game is still in play?" she said.

Rotheimer pointed to the culture in Springfield as another reason she left.

"Who's in control? The leaders. They are in control. So you look at the bottom tier—there is the person who is actually being controlled by the top tier. And what is the top tier doing? Disregarding law. Betraying public trust. Wasting taxpayer dollars," she said.

For Rotheimer, the fight continues — not just in court, but in the public arena.

“I think that we as Americans have to support each other,” she said. “We have to give each other the respect that we keep showing these elected officials and make these officials more accountable to us based on how not only we’re treated, but also that of our neighbor. And really look at this in alignment with the Constitution. Is it in alignment with the rule of law, and is it in alignment with the proper use of our tax dollars?”

Today, Rotheimer lives in Coral Springs, Florida, where she says life is quieter, freer and more aligned with her values.

“I made it work,” she said. “I’ve always taken the negative and turned it into a positive. That’s just how my brain is wired.”

She is now trying to rebuild. 

But she acknowledges the emotional scars remain.

Her daughter, a Cambridge-educated attorney, is now handling the family’s legal matters. 

Reflecting on her family's endurance, Rotheimer likens their resilience to that of high-profile figures, albeit without the spotlight or wealth.

“Trump’s a billionaire with a platform. We’re just ordinary folk,” she said. “And we’re still standing — we’ve been in court since 2012, and we’re living in a dream house.”