Eighteen-year-old Karolis Venckus and a Yorkie named Bella are living on their own in the gray and white house on a quiet street in the far northwest suburbs.
His single mother, a florist, is 50 miles away in the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago. She is fighting extradition to Lithuania, where — depending on who is presenting their argument — she is either a criminal or victim of political persecution.
“It’s very stressful” is all Venckus would say about how his life has gone since his mother, Neringa Venckiene, surrendered to authorities in February. He looked down and stayed silent for a few moments before adding: “Lonely.”
His mother says things will be much worse if she’s sent back to her homeland.
“I will not have a fair trial in Lithuania,” Venckiene wrote in an email from the MCC, “but most likely be killed.”
On Thursday, the case briefly came before U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall, who set a follow-up hearing for next month, when she’s expected to decide whether the allegations against Venckiene are politically motivated. That finding would delay her extradition.
She is to remain in custody until then.
Venckiene’s tangled legal oddysey began in 2008, when allegations surfaced that her 4-year-old niece had been molested by several men while in the care of her mother, whom she visited through a custody agreement between the girl’s parents.
The allegation set in motion events that led to the suspicious deaths of at least four people, including Venckiene’s brother. It also led to Venckiene’s own rise to political power and, fearing for her life, her later decision to flee Lithuania with her son in 2013. The two landed in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. They sent for Bella a few weeks later.
She is fighting extradition, she said, for “crimes I have not committed.”
Venckiene’s attorneys say the charges against her in Lithuania are little more than misdemeanors and may be cooked up. They contend the actual reason authorities there want her to return is to punish her for leading a political movement aimed at rooting out government corruption.
“Governments can hide their political motives behind a veil of largely insignificant or false criminal charges,” said attorney Mark Davidson, who’s representing Venckiene in her request for political asylum.
Federal prosecutors in Chicago present a more pragmatic response to Lithuania’s request to send Venckiene back. They say in legal documents that returning her aligns with an extradition treaty between Lithuania and the U.S.
They also note that the U.S. secretary of state’s office determines whether an individual’s claims to block extradition are valid. In Venckiene’s case, the State Department has approved her extradition, although that decision was issued without explanation.
The U.S. attorney’s office and State Department don’t comment on pending cases, spokesmen for each office said.
Lithuanian prosecutors did not respond to an email inquiry. The Consulate General of Lithuania in Chicago said in an email it is monitoring the case.
“We have no doubt that in this particular case, cooperation between the U.S. and Lithuanian authorities will proceed in accordance with all existing legal agreements,” the email said. “We cannot comment more as not to jeopardize the legal process.”
Incendiary allegations
The allegations of molestation are particularly incendiary.
Venckiene’s brother, the father of the alleged victim, contended his daughter was sexually abused by an assistant to the speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament, two high-ranking judges and a fourth unidentified person. Documents filed in Venckiene’s U.S. case state that a court psychiatrist in Lithuania examined the child and determined her allegations were genuine.
At the time, Venckiene was a judge. She and her brother, Drasius Kedys, filed complaints with prosecutors but, according to documents her attorneys filed, those allegations were ignored.
Sometime around the summer of 2009, prosecutors said in court documents, Kedys “made his case public and published a video of his daughter giving testimony that she had been sexually molested.” He sent copies of the video to “numerous Lithuanian authorities,” prosecutors said.
In October of that year, Venckiene’s attorneys state, a court concluded sufficient evidence existed to indict the girl’s mother, but that indictment never materialized.
“Given the ranking of the individuals accused,” attorneys Michael Monico and Carly Chocron wrote, “the matter drew national interest throughout Lithuania.”
That same month, one of the judges accused of molesting the girl, and the girl’s aunt, were both shot to death. Kedys, who some believed to be a suspect in the deaths, disappeared.
Six months later, his body was found on the bank of a lagoon. A government investigation determined that he’d choked on his own vomit while intoxicated. “But an independent criminologist concluded the death was not accidental,” and no alcohol was found in his system, Venckiene’s attorneys state in court documents.
In June 2010, the assistant to the speaker of Parliament — one of those implicated in molesting the girl — also was found dead.
During this time, Venckiene had custody of her niece, a right the court rescinded in 2011, ordering the girl returned to her mother. Contending that the girl refused to live with her mother, Venckiene resisted, prompting the police to remove the girl in May 2012 while nearly 100 protesters were present.
That incident is at the center of allegations against Venckiene, who authorities say kicked and punched the girl’s mother and a police officer who was removing the girl.
Venckiene contends that the girl clung to Venckiene’s neck, and that authorities injured Venckiene while pulling the girl from her.
“I did not kick anyone,” Venckiene wrote. “I did not lock the door. The police officer, who I apparently resisted, injured me. I couldn’t go to work for 12 days. My right shoulder was injured.”
Kedys’ death and the high-level pedophilia allegations sparked a political movement and creation of the Way of Courage Party aimed at fighting government corruption. Venckiene became its leader. She ran for parliament in 2012 and was one of seven party members elected.
She also was the subject of an investigation that yielded several charges, including “humiliating” the court, failing to comply with the order to transfer the girl to her mother’s custody, refusing to allow police entry to her home and physically assaulting an officer and the little girl’s mother.
“Fearing for her personal safety in Lithuania,” her attorneys wrote in court documents, “shortly thereafter Ms. Venckiene came to the United States.”
That was in April 2013. Over the next five years, Venckiene enrolled in classes at McHenry County College, worked as a caretaker for the elderly and cleaned houses, her attorneys said. She finished her paralegal studies, her son said, but instead decided last January to open a floral shop.
One month later, realizing that authorities were seeking her arrest, Venckiene surrendered. Why Lithuanian authorities chose to seek her extradition then remains unclear.
On Feb. 23, U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel G. Martin ordered the extradition. Late last month, her attorneys filed documents asking for a fuller hearing in civil court, a process that began Thursday.
Her lawyers argue that the U.S. State Department has failed to provide “any basis” for its ruling to approve the extradition. The State Department “merely absorbed the information provided and without analysis ruled that extradition was appropriate,” attorneys wrote in court filings.
Skeptics, supporters at home and abroad
Venckiene’s friends say she’s honest, kind, humble and hardworking.
“She’s just been wonderful to me,” said Kathleen Miller, who met Venckiene through a mutual friend about five years ago. Venckiene, an avid gardener, has left plants for Miller at her home. The two have shared meals and studied the Bible together.
Soyun Kim, who met Venckiene in an English language class in 2013, said Venckiene has shared vegetables from her garden and cooks for her parents when they visit from South Korea.
“She’s always giving what she has,” Kim said.
It’s unclear how widely her case is being followed in the robust Lithuanian population in and around Chicago, considered the U.S. capital of Lithuania.
Robertas Vitas, board chairman of the Lithuanian Research and Studies Center in Chicago, said he’s never heard Venckiene’s plight being discussed at social and cultural gatherings. That silence, he said, may indicate that Lithuanians support her extradition.
“I suspect,” Vitas said, “that people have the perception that perhaps the charges … have some merit.” He is skeptical about Venckiene’s charges of widespread government corruption and said he believes she would get a fair trial in Lithuania.
‘Prison did not scare me’
Venckiene shares a 12th-floor cell at the detention tower with two other women and is able to get on the deck at the top of the 27-story structure, visit the library and gym, and attend Mass, she said.
“The prison did not scare me,” she added. “I don’t have any problems here.”
Every two weeks, her son, Karolis, makes the long drive to visit her. They speak on the phone every couple of days, he said, and exchange one or two emails a day.
He is attending college, unsure what he wants to study, and also works at the floral shop. His typical day starts with school, then the floral shop, where he works delivering flowers almost every day, then homework and hanging out with friends.
“In general,” he said, “I’m kind of a pessimistic person, but America is very different from Lithuania.” He mentioned democracy and freedom of speech.
“I hope that she’ll be able to prove that she’s right,” he said, “here, in America.”
In Lithuania, he said in a soft voice, there’s no chance for that.
