Nov. 03--A former Chicago police captain fired two decades ago for sexually harassing female officers under his command is facing charges of impersonating a government official outside the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago last month.
John Manley, 72, was ticketed on two misdemeanor counts after the Oct. 15 incident near the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse at 219 S. Dearborn St., court records show.
Reached by phone Tuesday, Manley acknowledged that he'd parked his car illegally to go to a meeting that ran long and made a bad choice to try to get out of the violation.
"I was an idiot, to be perfectly honest with you," Manley said. "It wasn't the crime of the century. ... This was just a silly, stupid thing that I did, and I'm going to have to pay the government some money."
Manley had parked his blue Dodge in the media parking area just south of the courthouse and left the vehicle unattended for more than two hours with police-style lights flashing in the rear window, records show.
Confronted by security officers when he returned to the car, Manley claimed he was a "special agent" with the U.S. Maritime Service responsible for seizing boats on the Great Lakes, according to court records. He produced a gold badge that turned out to be a fake, prompting U.S. marshals to take him into the courthouse for questioning.
Manley told authorities in an interview that he actually worked for "a two-star general in Washington, D.C.," but declined to provide contact information for him, court records show.
Records show Manley was fired from his position as a North Side police captain in 1995 after a lurid trial in which several subordinate officers testified that he frequently used sexually explicit language to harass female officers, solicited them for sexual favors and crudely joked about sex while presiding at change-of-shift roll calls.
jmeisner@tribpub.com
