In federal lawsuit, ‘demoted’ investigator claims she found ghost payrolling, COVID fraud, nepotism and more at the sheriff’s office

3 weeks ago 20
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart appears in a town hall discussion about electronic monitoring via Zoom on January 10, 2022. (Zoom)

CHICAGO — A Cook County Sheriff’s Office investigator is suing the agency, Sheriff Tom Dart, and the county, claiming that she was transferred to a less prestigious unit after discovering possible misconduct within the sheriff’s office, including ghost payrolling and misuse of resources. Sgt. Nicole Pagani’s alleges sex discrimination, retaliation, and violation of the state Whistleblower Act.

In a federal complaint, Pagani says she spent a decade as a senior investigator working on internal affairs cases in the sheriff’s “Criminal and Confidential Unit,” known as Squad 4. Her lawsuit says she received top secret FBI clearance and joined a federal task force, which brought perks like an FBI take-home car and up to 778 hours of overtime per year as she investigated “cases deemed confidential in nature involving high-ranking members” of the office and sworn officers.

But Pagani claims that all ended a year ago when her boss retaliated by angrily “demoting” her to Squad 3, transferring her to a new office, and ending her federal collaborations. Pagani seeks compensation in excess of $2 million and reinstatement to Squad 4 and the federal task force, including all associated benefits.

The lawsuit said Pagani and other Squad 4 investigators learned in the summer of 2021 that “several” sheriff’s office employees were involved in ghost payrolling and secondary employment at a security company. Details of the investigation went public in March 2022 after reporters learned that the FBI became involved. That investigation, Pagani claims, “expanded significantly” by January 2024.

In other matters, she claims that Squad 4 developed information about:

  • “more than 20” employees clocking in or out for colleagues
  • the falsification of timekeeping records so employees could receive federal hazardous duty pay during the COVID pandemic
  • the training of staff members’ pets by the sheriff’s canine unit
  • manipulation of job postings to benefit executives’ family members

At one point, Pagani claims, her boss told her that a top attorney in the sheriff’s office was concerned that the payroll investigations could make the agency responsible for paying back millions it received in federal COVID relief funds. The suit claimed that the attorney brought the matter up with her boss “pretty much every time he talks” with her.

By Pagani’s telling, things started to come to a head in September 2023 when her boss revealed that he would be giving Dart “regular up-dates” on the federal investigation of payroll practices, saying, “the Sheriff’s is our boss and if he asks questions and wants to know about a case we are going to tell him.”

The executive allegedly instructed her to provide him with federal grand jury information and other details so he could share the information with the sheriff. Her boss “became enraged” when she said she wanted to check with the FBI to ensure the revelations were allowed under federal law.

The boss advised Pagani that she “needs to stop the secretive stuff” and ordered her to turn over an affidavit she had signed and the resulting grand jury search warrant.

A source in the sheriff’s office called Pagani “credible…She was spearheading the ghost payrolling investigation. She knows where all the skeletons are hidden.”

But another says the lawsuit’s allegations are overblown. CWBChicago could not find any federal or state criminal cases involving any of the matters detailed in Pagani’s lawsuit, which says she had a strong working relationship with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The lawsuit also claims that Pagani personally presented the findings of a payroll investigation to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office in December 2023. But “the representative from Kim Foxx’s Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office took no notes and appeared to be very disinterested in prosecuting these crimes.”

In a statement, the sheriff’s office said it “cannot comment on pending litigation, but the Office strongly disputes the allegations in this lawsuit and intends to litigate the matter fully.”

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