Kevin Woodard contributed to this story
At the McLean County Justice Board meeting on Tuesday McLean County Sheriff Jon Sandage accused McLean County Board member and State House candidate Sharon Chung of making conditions more dangerous inside the McLean County Jail.
According to Sandage, Chung has been in contact with several McLean County Jail inmates by both email and phone.
“She’s putting false information into these inmates’ heads. Which creates tension in the facility. When you have inmates that are being told by the county board member that we are doing things that are illegal, they are going to rebel. When that happens, that puts our correctional officers in a dangerous position,” said Sandage.
In the U.S., approximately half a million correctional officers are responsible for supervising more than two million inmates. There’s very limited studies done on correctional officer deaths, but in 2015 correctional officers experienced 153 work-related injuries per 10,000 full-time equivalent employees due to assaults and violent acts. Today, May 5, marks the end of Correctional Officer Appreciation Week.
Sandage also accused Chung of assisting one inmate in filing a lawsuit against McLean County, the entity she was elected to represent.
Further complicating matters is that according to Sandage that inmate has white supremacist tattoos.
“I don’t know who initiated the contact. I find it disgusting that you are trying to go to bat for somebody who has those types of beliefs,” said Sandage. “There’s another inmate who instigated a fight with an inmate who was practicing their Ramadan prayers.”
This is particularly intriguing given the fact that in the past Chung has been an outspoken critic of Asian hate. Sandage received the emails through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
“I don’t know why she appointed herself as an advocate for the jail. She’s proven herself to not only be anti law enforcement, but to be pro criminal. That’s the last thing McLean County board needs and that’s the last thing Illinois needs,” said Sandage.
Given a chance to respond at the meeting, Chung refused to comment.
Photo courtesy to Sharon Chung Facebook page. Chung is running as a Democrat
Cities 92.9 was able to contact Jim Fisher, one of the Republicans running for the 91st District house seat, Asked for his thoughts on the matter Fisher stated he would ask Chung, “What are you doing? What is the point? Are you trying to improve things? If you want to do that why wouldn’t you work with Sandage and go down to the jail and look at it? ”
Fisher added, “That would be something I would want to do. If I am elected as State Representative and I have a complaint about a state facility I am going to go down there and ask them what this is about.”
Photo courtesy to Donald Rients Facebook page. Left Donald Ray Rients (candidate in 105th State House District), Jim Fisher (candidate in 91st State House District), and Darren Bailey (Gubernatorial candidate)
Cities also reached out to Justice Committee Chair Chuck Erickson who represents District 10 on the County Board and asked him his thoughts regarding the matter. “Sharon has been going after Jon Sandage for months and finally Sandage said I am going to respond back with the truth,” Erickson said.
We also asked Erickson if he thought Chung had violated protocol by contacting inmates directly and this is what he had to say. ” I think a Board Member has to realize they have responsibilities because of the positions they hold and they have to be careful about everything they say about issues involving the county. They can not breed false hope and imply to anyone that they have more power than they actually do.”
When asked if any discipline from the Board might be in order with regard to the mater Erickson stated, “That’s up to County Board Members to decide.”
Chung, in a WGLT article, said that Sandage gave out the information of board members to inmates. That is not true.
“What was given to the inmates if they wanted to write to the county board, in reference to the tablet situation, they were given the address to the government center and were told to address any correspondence to that address. We did not give away any county board members phone numbers, emails, addresses, anything of that nature. Although that stuff is available online,” said Sandage, who has served 30 years in McLean County…six of those years as Sheriff.
The tablet vote that faced the county board was about whether or not they should charge .05 cents per usage minute for tablet entertainment, like streaming a movie and inbound messages via email would be a quarter. Democrats proposed free internet for inmates.
Sandage said the aggravating thing is that she knows absolutely nothing about corrections or how to run a correctional facility.
“She refuses to come to the correctional facility, like the vice president not going to the border,” said Sandage. “They don’t want facts to interfere with their narrative.Again this is a false narrative that she is trying to push. We’ve had other county board members come and tour the jail. They can speak to the facility we run and the things we do.”
Sandage said he doesn’t understand… “you’re sitting on a justice committee and you vote on things that affect the sheriff’s department or the jail. Why wouldn’t you want to tour that facility and no more about it?”
The Sheriff’s office has worked with the CDC guidelines and the McLean County Health Department guidelines to see what’s best for the facility.
“Now for Illinois jail standards we only have to let them out one hour a day, we let them out for 6 hours a day,” said Sandage. “She can’t figure out what she wants to complain about. She wants to complain about COVID in the jail and when we try to mitigate that, then she wants to complain about how many hours inmates are locked up to try to prevent COVID in the jail. It’s a lack of education on her part. It’s a lack of even trying to learn even how we run a facility on her part.”
According to IL Campaign Cash a website made available by the Illinois Center for Politics Chung now has $60,000 on hand for her 91st District Campaign. The majority of the cash is from two donors. On March 31st she received $25,000 from the Illinois Laborers’ Legislative Committee. And on April 28 she received $30,000 from the Provision Township Democratic Association. So that accounts for $55,000 of the $60,000.
The Illinois Laborers’ Committee is a non-profit organization. It is connected with the LiUNA Midwest Region. LIUNA stands for the Laborers’ International Union of North America which has over 500,000 members. The Midwest Region represents 55,000 workers. The progressive union represents construction workers, government employees and health care workers among others.
A web search for the Provision Township Democratic Organization found nothing. But this writer did find the Proviso Township – Cook County Democratic Party which is a page on the Cook County Democrat Party web site. Cook County Democrats have a Statewide Selection Committee that endorses statewide candidates.
Cities reached out to Chung, her Democratic challenger for the 91st District Kara Bailey-Smith and Republican contender Scott Preston but did not receive responses back on short notice.
