Chicago Ald. Jim Gardiner says ethics violation claims were a "witch hunt"

An attorney for Chicago Ald. Jim Gardiner (45th) on Monday called an ethics investigation into the alderman's conduct a malicious "travesty."

The alderman himself called the investigation a "witch hunt."

Gardiner has filed a lawsuit against the City of Chicago over the Ethics Ordinance violation, of which the alderman was ultimately cleared.

In 2023,  the Chicago Board of Ethics fined Gardiner $20,000, after finding probable cause that he violated the city's ethics ordinance by retaliating against a constituent who frequently criticized him.

The board backed a finding by the city's inspector general's office, which determined Gardiner "directed City employees to issue unfounded citations for overgrown weeds and rodents to the home of a constituent who had been publicly critical of the alderperson."

The inspector general's report said he went ahead with plans to have the constituent cited, even after being told the plants in his yard were legal. Those citations could have cost his constituent $600, but they were ultimately thrown out by a judge.

Gardiner appealed the Board of Ethics' ruling and the board later cleared him of any wrongdoing, after an administrative law judge determined the city "failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence" that Gardiner was not liable for any ethics violations.

Attorney Craig Tobin, representing Gardiner, said the ethics investigation was a "travesty," and called it a "weaponization of a city agency" to go after the alderman.

"We've had a four-year investigation that was purportedly an ethics investigation, where the IG went on TV and talked about the fact that this is really a big deal, that we got the largest fine in the history of the city of Chicago against a sitting alderman," Tobin said, "and yet the failure here was that it was based on fabricated testimony, withheld evidence."

Tobin said the city had evidence contrary to the claims that Ald. Gardiner was retaliating against anyone.

"They had evidence that showed that this case originated from a neighbor, not the alderman. The alderman wasn't instituting phone calls to the city, the neighbor was — the neighbor who had to put up with the way this property looked," Tobin said. "But instead, a narrative fit the IG, which is Mr. Gardiner is a retaliator, and he had to retaliate here against this individual. And yet, there was no evidence to support this."

Last week, Gardiner filed a lawsuit against the city, the Chicago Board of Ethics, and the Chicago Office of the Inspector General. He claimed the ethics case against him was an effort by the city, the board, and former Inspector General Deborah Witzburg "to harass, punish, and drive him out of elected office."

Gardiner said he has proudly served Chicago for seven years as an alderman on the Northwest Side, a Chicago firefighter for 14 years before that, and a Chicago Public Schools special education teacher before that.

"I love this city. But even more than the love I have for this city is the fact that I simply want the truth to come to light, and we are simply calling out individuals who basically went out on a witch hunt to make me be the bad person, the fall guy, and when the truth was cleared, when the light went out, it was that the city was hiding evidence," Gardiner said. "I want to make sure that this doesn't happen to anybody moving forward."