Until his indictment Friday, Democratic state Sen. Tom Cullerton of Villa Park was perhaps best known for helping lead the legislature’s inquiry into the deadly outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease at a state veterans home in downstate Quincy.
A distant cousin of Senate President John Cullerton of Chicago, he is graduate of Loyola Academy in Wilmette, attended the University of Kansas and was an infantryman in the Army from 1990 to 1993.
Cullerton was elected a Villa Park village trustee in 2005 and became the western suburb’s president in 2009, a post he held until 2013. In 2008 he made a run for the Senate as a Democrat, challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Carole Pankau of Itasca. He was removed from that ballot because he’d voted in that year’s Republican primary before being chosen by local Democrats to fill an empty spot on the ballot.
After new district lines were drawn following the 2010 census, Cullerton succeeded in unseating Pankau in the 2012 election. He defeated Republican Seth Lewis of Bartlett in 2016 and again in 2018 to hold on to his seat.
Cullerton, 49, who this year became chairman of the Senate Labor Committee, earned nearly $183,000 from 2013 to 2015 as an organizer for Teamsters Joint Council 25, according to state and federal records.
He was indicted Friday on allegations he pocketed almost $275,000 in payments and benefits from the Teamsters despite doing little or no work.
The Teamsters have contributed nearly $96,000 to Cullerton’s campaign fund since 2012, according to state campaign finance records. Joint Council 25 held a fundraiser for him on Dec. 5, 2017, that raised more than $70,000, according to the union’s website and campaign finance records.
As a senator, Cullerton is in line to make about $80,000 this year, which includes a $10,500 stipend for being chairman of the Labor Committee.
He has sponsored legislation requiring taxing bodies to notify the public if they enter into a severance agreement with an employee who has been accused of sexual assault, and measures regulating lead levels in drinking water and speeding up the government consolidation process. He’s been outspoken on the issue of noise and pollution at O’Hare International Airport.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago subpoenaed the state Senate in February for Cullerton’s emails, personnel file and reimbursement documents over a three-year period for travel, meals, lodging and phone and vehicle allowances.
In a statement Friday, Cullerton’s attorney denied any wrongdoing on the part of the senator.
“The action by the U.S. Department of Justice has nothing to do with Mr. Cullerton’s work in the Illinois State Senate but is the result of false claims by disgraced Teamsters boss John Coli in an apparent attempt to avoid penalties for his wrongdoing,” attorney John Theis said.
Coli, a politically connected former Teamsters boss, pleaded guilty Tuesday to extorting a Chicago film studio and agreed to cooperate with authorities.
Cullerton and his wife, Stacey, have three sons.
jmunks@chicagotribune.com
