The woman who sources say was out drinking with then-Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson the night he was found asleep in his vehicle has been accused of tampering with evidence amid the city watchdog’s investigation into the incident, the Chicago Tribune has learned.
The woman, a veteran Chicago police officer, was accused of removing a SIM card from a cellphone that had been sought as evidence by the office of city Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, according to a document obtained by the Tribune. SIM cards store data on cellphones.
The document obtained by the Tribune through an open-records request shows the officer’s complaint history since she joined the department in 2006. It indicated a sergeant in the bureau where the officer is now assigned filed a complaint making the allegation against her about the cellphone data.
“The accused officer is alleged to have removed a SIM card from a cell phone that was requested as evidence by the OIG,” the document said. The document doesn’t describe which investigation but lists a “date of incident” of Nov. 21. Ferguson’s office has been investigating Johnson since soon after officers found him asleep in a running vehicle near his South Side home after a late weeknight out in mid-October.
The female officer was a member of Johnson’s security detail at the time of the incident, sources said.
The Tribune is not naming the female officer because no disciplinary action or criminal charges have been brought against her. Neither she nor her attorney could be reached for comment Friday.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot fired the superintendent Monday, saying she had concluded after reviewing the inspector general’s findings and video-recorded evidence that Johnson had lied to her and the public about his conduct that night.
Jeffrey Cramer, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago, said in a telephone interview that criminal charges could result if authorities conclude the SIM card was intentionally removed to impede the investigation.
“When SIM cards that could be relevant come up missing, it’s a red flag that can be seen for miles,” said Cramer, now a managing director at Berkeley Research Group, a global investigations firm.
Anthony Guglielmi, the department’s chief spokesman, said Friday that the department opened an investigation after the phone’s SIM card was discovered missing.
Three days after Johnson was found asleep behind the wheel, Guglielmi said the female officer was reassigned from the superintendent’s security detail to the Evidence and Recovered Property section housed at the department’s Homan Square facility on the West Side. He could not elaborate on why she was transferred.
The officer went on paid medical leave from the department on Nov. 1 after falling off a chair in a Records Section office at police headquarters at 35th Street and Michigan Avenue, according to Guglielmi, citing department records. She was taken by a Chicago Fire Department ambulance to Mercy Hospital & Medical Center with injuries to her back and neck, he said. She remains on medical leave.
Guglielmi said officials are seeking to determine why she was working at police headquarters after her transfer off the security detail and to Homan Square.
Johnson initially blamed his behavior on a change in medication but privately admitted to Lightfoot the next day that he had a couple of drinks that night.
Sources have told the Tribune that Ferguson’s office obtained video footage showing the superintendent drinking for a few hours on the evening of Oct. 16 with the female officer at Ceres Cafe, a popular restaurant and bar in the Chicago Board of Trade building known for its stiff drinks. One of the sources said the two were seen kissing on restaurant video.
Later that night, officers responding to a 911 call about 12:30 a.m. Oct. 17 near Johnson’s home in the Bridgeport neighborhood rapped on an SUV’s window, waking Johnson, a source said. Johnson rolled the window down partway and flashed his police identification, the source said. Officers asked if he was able to drive home, the source said, and Johnson pulled away after responding yes.
In a statement issued Tuesday by his lawyer, Johnson denied he intentionally lied to the mayor or the public but admitted that he made “a poor decision and had a lapse of judgment” on the night in question.
“That was a mistake and I know that,” the statement quoted Johnson as saying. “I have no interest in fighting a battle for my reputation with those that want to question it now.”
In another allegation in the officer’s complaint history, she was accused in October 2017, while still assigned to the superintendent’s security detail, of failing to report for one overtime shift. The anonymous complainant alleged that a lieutenant falsified a time sheet to make it appear the officer had worked that day after an “unidentified person” had called to intervene in the matter.
It was unclear if the officer had been disciplined over the allegation, but the department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs closed the complaint within two months, the records show.
jgorner@chicagotribune.com
asweeney@chicagotribune.com