Ald. Jim Gardiner is suing the city and various ethics and accountability agencies, arguing that previous investigations and fines leveled against him were aimed at damaging his political viability.
The suit accuses the city, the Chicago Board of Ethics, Office of the Inspector General and former Inspector General Deborah Witzburg of “acting with profound malice, fabricating a case, suppressing evidence, and intentionally using false testimony in a concerted effort to destroy Alderman Gardiner’s career,” according to a statement from his attorney, Craig D. Tobin.
Among the allegations in the lawsuit are that the agencies withheld and destroyed evidence that would have cleared Gardiner from accusations that he denied services to constituents and obtained police records of one constituent to retaliate against them.
“This lawsuit is about holding those in power accountable for weaponizing city agencies and violating due process to attack a political critic,” Tobin said. “The core of the OIG’s case — that Gardiner directed a city employee to issue unfounded weed citations to a political critic and misused city property by directing staff to make anonymous 311 calls — was knowingly and demonstrably false.”
The lawsuit, filed in Cook County Circuit Court, seeks $1 million in damages.
Representatives for the city’s Board of Ethics and the Department of Law both both said they couldn’t comment on pending litigation and had not been served the lawsuit. The Office of the Inspector General didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Gardiner has faced years of controversy and investigations during his roughly six years in office.
He was fined $20,000 in 2023 — the suit attests it should have been a maximum of $18,000 — after the Chicago Board of Ethics found probable cause to believe Gardiner had violated the city’s ethics law related to the alleged retaliation. But the board then dismissed the fine and charge last June, clearing him.
In 2021, he was put under federal investigation after authorities looked into whether he took a $5,000 bribe from a developer to stall a mixed-use project known as the Point at Six Corners. He was never charged with a crime, though texts revealed in FBI affidavits showed him saying he got a floor ticket to then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s inauguration for a developer who had been “very, very good” to him.
That same year, he was accused of using taxpayer funds to pay a campaign employee. Months later, he was removed from all Democratic committee assignments after a Cook County Democratic Party formal inquiry determined his conduct during his first two years in the City Council had been “boorish, obnoxious, repugnant, rude and vulgar.”
Texts the alderman sent to a former staff member — first published by The People’s Fabric, part of independent journalism outlet Unraveled Press — showed him referring to female colleagues, constituents and a gay alderman as “b – – – -[es]” and to a constituent as a “c – – -.”
In others, Gardiner reportedly said he obtained police records of a constituent who was critical of him with the intention to “leak” them.
Amid public and private apologies for the text messages, Gardiner maintained he “never withheld nor have I ever instructed or condoned my staff to withhold city services from any resident.”