Former Cook County Judge Patricia Martin was sentenced Friday to four years of probation after pleading guilty to stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from World War II veteran Oscar Wilkerson Jr., who was one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen.
Martin, who was head of the Cook County juvenile court’s child protection division until her 2020 retirement, appeared before Judge Terry Gallagher and pleaded guilty to one count of theft with a value between $100,000 and $500,000.
She was sentenced to four years of probation and ordered to pay $122,763.73 in restitution.
Martin, a niece of Wilkerson’s former wife, was given control of his finances in November 2020, when he moved to a senior residence in Orland Park.
Wilkerson, who died in February 2023 at 96, had been the last known surviving member of the Tuskegee Airmen in the Chicago area. In 2007, he was among about 300 surviving members of the trailblazing all-Black aviation unit awarded the Congressional Gold Medal by President George W. Bush.
Martin was charged in November 2023 with seven felony counts, including theft, money-laundering, financial exploitation of an elderly person and running a continuing criminal enterprise. Prosecutors said she took money from Wilkerson’s accounts and used it to buy cryptocurrency.
Wilkerson’s lawyers discovered that more than $380,000 had been emptied from his bank and retirement accounts, according to a lawsuit. Wilkerson learned the money was missing when he got a bill for more than $41,000 in unpaid fees from his senior residence in July 2022.
Cook County Circuit Judge Anna Demacopoulos entered a $1.2 million default judgment against Martin in May 2023 after Martin did not respond to questions about the money nor hand over records in the civil case.
Martin has been disbarred.
As part of her probation, which runs through Dec. 3, 2029, Martin must report to the county’s Adult Probation Department, complete drug and alcohol evaluation and treatment, submit to random drug testing and comply with DNA indexing requirements. Also, she’s barred from leaving Illinois without court permission and cannot possess firearms or other weapons.
Wilkerson, at the time a senior at Bloom High School in Chicago Heights, registered for the Army Air Force and was on a train to Tuskegee, Alabama, to start training just 10 days after graduating.
In his obituary, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that he rode a Pullman sleeper car but, upon crossing the Mason-Dixon line, was told to move to a Blacks-only train car — an experience that, in an interview with Chicago’s Pritzker Military Museum & Library, called his “first real hard taste of segregation.”
Fulfilling a childhood dream to fly, he became a bomber pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen, the famed unit that helped pave the way for desegregation in the military.
After leaving the military and coming home to Chicago, he found his job options limited despite his training as a pilot.
“After the war, we were not able to go into commercial aviation,” Wilkerson told the military museum. “Blacks weren’t accepted at that time. I couldn’t fly commercially. So I became a bus driver in Chicago.”
He also worked at radio stations in Chicago and Harvey.
But he never lost his love of flying, and he delighted in sharing that with kids. He’d speak at schools and churches, talking about how the Tuskegee Airmen were legendary for their aerial prowess and for shattering a stereotype that Black men weren’t capable of being combat pilots.
And, through the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Young Eagles Program, he would meet kids at Gary/Chicago Airport and take them on their first flights, for free.