CHICAGO _ The lawyer who allegedly posed as a judge has been indicted on criminal charges, the latest fallout from the scandal that began when the judicial hopeful from the South Side put on a black robe and presided over three traffic cases, her lawyer said Thursday.
The indictment, handed up by a Cook County grand jury, charges attorney Rhonda Crawford with two criminal counts, according to her lawyer, Victor Henderson, who said the Cook County state's attorney's office informed him of the indictment but did not specify the charges.
"They contacted me and said they are moving forward with the charges," Henderson said.
A spokeswoman for the state's attorney's office could not be immediately reached to confirm Crawford's indictment.
The charges come one week after the state commission that oversees lawyers concluded Crawford committed a crime and asked the Illinois Supreme Court to suspend her law license and prohibit her from taking office. And they come less than three weeks before the November general election in which Crawford hopes to win a seat on the bench from the First Judicial Subcircuit, a district that includes the city's South Side and some south suburbs.
Henderson said that Crawford was steadfast in her decision to be on the bench and would not drop out of the race. She has refused to withdraw from the race, and she has tried to prevent her only opponent, Judge Maryam Ahmad, from waging a write-in campaign.
"She's not going anywhere," he said. "She is going to fight the good fight."
Crawford, 45, could not be reached for comment.
The status of any investigation into the role of Valarie Turner, the Markham judge who Crawford has said allowed her to wear her robe and handle the three cases, was unclear. But Chief Judge Timothy Evans has removed Turner from the bench and reassigned to administrative duties, while also referring the matter to the Judicial Inquiry Board, the state commission that oversees judicial conduct.
Crawford's campaign has insisted that she made an honest mistake and has blamed Turner for encouraging her to take the bench.
The incident began in a lower-level courtroom at the Markham courthouse the morning of Aug. 11, when Crawford sat in the witness box to observe cases, officials have alleged. But during the 1 p.m. hearing, those in the courtroom were informed that Crawford was going to put on Turner's robe, sit in her chair and hear cases. According to the state Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, she heard three traffic cases from the Village of Dolton.
Though Crawford insisted she took no actions in any of the cases, documents filed by the disciplinary commission say she did. In fact, at one point, according to the documents, a lawyer for the Village of Dolton asked to continue a case because a police officer was not in the courtroom. Crawford asked if she could deny the motion and, when Turner said that she could, she did so, the disciplinary officials alleged.
Crawford, who had worked as a $57,000-a-year law clerk/staff attorney in the chief judge's office since 2011, was fired from her job. A former nurse, she obtained her law degree in 2003. She handily defeated two opponents in the Democratic primary in March.
While under indictment, Crawford can continue her campaign. Election officials have said a felony conviction would disqualify her.
Turner, a graduate of Northwestern University and the University of Chicago law school, is a former federal prosecutor who also worked as an associate at the big Kirkland & Ellis law firm. First elected to the bench in 2002, she hears municipal cases in Markham.
