‘Tinley official recalls wading through post-Katrina mess’

Katrina anniversary coming up. And we had a totally local angle. Bigshot from Tinley Park  was a bigshot in the storm’s rebuilding. Nice. I was only sorry we’d never sent anyone to shadow Pat Rea in action.

Around the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, as efforts to rebuild the Gulf Coast still were mired in bureaucracy, a Tinley Park trustee headed south to help sort things out.

Patrick Rea got a nod from Washington, appointed by President George W. Bush to head the Small Business Administration’s response to the massive storm and to streamline the disaster recovery process for future catastrophes. He had been heading the SBA’s Midwest regional office when he was promoted.

Five years after the storm hit, Rea, who now serves as village clerk, recalls the work he did, acknowledges his shortcomings and offers two bits of advice that would prevent a repeat of the chaos.

He’d get people’s crucial documents into a single place online.

States could lead the effort because most of the information needed to apply for help – the deed to your house, mortgage company information, car title – already are public.

And he’d want a single official appointed to oversee the management of a megadisaster, assembling all involved federal agencies under a single authority, until the recovery was complete. Call it a Katrina boss, a wildfire czar, someone with even more power than Rea or the head of Federal Emergency Management Agency had.

Working out of offices in Fort Worth, Texas, and Washington, D.C., Rea started in September 2006 by re-engineering the the initial loan application process to simplify the low-interest loans offered to anyone in the hurricane’s footprint.

“When someone says the SBA is the nation’s disaster bank, they’re exactly right,” he said. “In a disaster, it’s not just small businesses we deal with, it’s homes too, churches, schools, everything else.”

The retired brigadier general in the Army Reserve was stuck with a computer system just five days old. His staff tried bypassing the mainframe with smaller computers to piece the process together.

“We weren’t through the troubleshooting. When Katrina poured into it, there wasn’t troubleshooting, there was life support. The whole thing collapsed. It was a mess.”

Applicants who had lost everything in the massive floods – including their tax returns – got logjammed in the Internal Revenue Service, he said. The tax agency had limited communications itself and couldn’t let loan processors access its sensitive databases.

But with presidential authority, Rea removed most of the roadblocks, he said. Just not all of them.

“Every time an issue came up, I went to it personally and found a solution,” he said. “If it required people, we put people in those offices.”

In anticipation of the hurricane’s anniversary this weekend, The Associated Press investigated the SBA loan program Rea headed. According to its reports, the SBA was mismanaged, rejected 55 percent of applications out of pressure to close cases and demanded a process so complicated that thousands of applicants just gave up.

Rea said he wasn’t shocked, adding, “I can’t say for sure, but my mouth wouldn’t fly open at the charge that was happening.”

He said that SBA did decline numerous loan applications but added that certain folks who’d qualify for FEMA grants and other free help required a rejection.

“Did we have problems? Oh yes,” he said. “Are they solved today? We’re better than we were.”

Published in the SouthtownStar, Aug. 29, 2010 on page 26.

‘New sex charge against Chi Ridge mom’

A Chicago Ridge mother of three accused of molesting her eldest daughter’s four male teenage friends also victimized a 12-year-old boy, Cook County prosecutors said Monday.

Cathleen Miller was indicted on five felony counts, Assistant State’s Attorney Joe Crocker told Cook County Circuit Judge Joan M. O’Brien.

The indictment includes a predatory criminal sexual assault charge stemming from sexual contact with a 12-year-old boy, Crocker said.

That boy’s family has filed a lawsuit against Cathleen Miller , 40, according to Miller ‘s lawyer, John Russell. And the boy’s 15-year-old sister has accused Miller’s husband, Richard Miller , of touching her leg in early June in an incident that resulted in a misdemeanor battery charge against him.

Cathleen Miller appeared in court in blue jail scrubs to hear the charges against her, which include criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

The former secretary for the village of Chicago Ridge was arrested July 13. Her five victims, the oldest of whom is 15, were molested in Miller ‘s home between February and June, according to prosecutors. They said Miller allegedly plied the boys with alcohol and marijuana and had sexual intercourse with two of them.

She may not have any contact with her eldest daughter, whom police said witnessed some of the acts.

She’s at Cook County Jail awaiting trial.

Chicago Ridge Mayor Eugene Siegel did not want to comment Monday except to say Miller was fired after her arrest. The village had employed her for 25 years.

Miller denies any wrongdoing, her attorney said. Her lawyers previously have said Miller denied supplying alcohol or drugs to anyone, and that the friends of her 14-year-old daughter brought their own. Miller ‘s attorneys have said she is a victim of domestic violence.

In early June, she asked the court for an order of protection against her husband, saying he spit on her and pushed her to the ground. He was charged with domestic battery and was barred from their home.

On Monday, the charge and protection order were dismissed, prosecutors said. But he still faces a misdemeanor battery charge, Chicago Ridge Police Chief Robert Pyznarski said. Meanwhile, their three daughters have been living with Cathleen Miller ‘s sister.

Published in the SouthtownStar, Aug. 3, 2010, on page WHAT.
Printable 2010-08 New sex charge against Chi Ridge mom || The SouthtownStar

As seen in the Chicago Sun-Times 2010-08 5th boy alleges molestation by Chi Ridge mom || CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

‘Thornton grad’s war death confirmed’

His family grieved at the news of his death, breathed a sigh of relief he still was alive, then became angry when they were not allowed into a military hospital to see him.

Now they’re mourning again.

Sgt. 1st Class Edgar N. Roberts, a 1988 graduate of Thornton High School, died Aug. 17 of injuries he received in Afghanistan, the Department of Defense has confirmed.

Roberts, whose relatives live in Park Forest, was attacked by insurgents using an explosive device June 26 in Sayed Abad, Wardak province, according to the department.

The 39-year-old was being treated at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., when he died, according to the department.

The Gulf War vet was assigned to 810th Engineer Company, Georgia National guard, in Swainsboro, Ga., and lived in nearby Hinesville.

Roberts, who cleared the kind of bombs that took his life, was thrown from the vehicle in the June attack, his sisters said. With a cracked skull and numerous broken bones, he made it back to the United States for treatment, his sisters said.

The sisters and their mother said his father called from Belize on Aug. 10, telling them Roberts had died of his injuries. They said the father learned of the news from Edgar Roberts’ wife, Jannett, who was at the hospital.

A family friend saw their postings on Facebook mourning their brother’s death and urged them to call Bethesda themselves.

An officer told them Edgar Roberts was in the intensive care unit and had not died.

“Here we are grieving again,” sister Rose Roberts-Alexander said Monday. “What really hurts is we were all the way down there.”

Roberts-Alexander and three other sisters drove to Bethesda more than a week ago to try to see their brother after they got false word of his death. They said they were turned away at the gate at the request of his wife. They didn’t get to see him or talk with anyone about his
case. Privacy laws prevent them from accessing his medical records.

Youngest sister Robyn Anderson said the sisters still don’t know exactly what happened to their brother.

“Every time we talk to somebody in the military about what’s going on, we get brushed off,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do. (Jannett’s) the next of kin, she’s the wife.”

Jannett Roberts has not returned any messages left for her by SouthtownStar reporters.

Born in Belize, Roberts moved to Harvey with his father and a sister as he was about to start high school at Thornton, according to his family.

Roberts, a veteran of the first Gulf War, already had survived a roadside bombing on Dec. 8 when his vehicle flipped over. He was awarded a Purple Heart.

His funeral arrangements are pending.

Published in the SouthtownStar, Aug. 24, 2010, on page 6.

Also in the Chicago Sun-Times Suburban soldier dies, days after family told of death || CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

‘Rules for combat-related stress treatment now relaxed’

The thing about modern war is that it’s more complicated than it was during World War II.

Troops get sent on tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, come home, and then they get sent back. Veterans account for one out of every five suicides.

Combat doesn’t always mean firing at the enemy across a battlefield, and weapons aren’t as obvious as in past conflicts, said Dr. Sudip Bose, an Iraq war veteran and former Christ Medical Center ER doctor.

So it follows that instances of post-traumatic stress disorder – what the World War II vets might have called “shell shock” – are on the rise, and it’s lifesaving, Bose said, that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has relaxed its regulations for making a post-traumatic stress disorder claim for treatment.

“You can in fact have combat stress and PTSD even if you’re not directly in the line of fire. This is a different war zone,” Bose said, describing battles in urban streets where piles of trash can turn deadly. People fire out of buildings, chuck grenades under bridges, set bombs across roads.

“It’s not force on force anymore. It’s stressful even if you’re just driving down the road over there,” he said.

Bose spent 15 months in Iraq, during the siege of Fallujah and as U. S. forces battled the Al-Sadr militia in Najaf. Then he took a job in the emergency room at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he worked for four years and started speaking publicly about PTSD. Now he’s based in Odessa, Texas, but still travels to give talks.

Previous VA rules made veterans document, in detail, the bomb explosions or firefights they blamed for stress. The paperwork was intense, took a long time and sometimes wasn’t possible to complete.

As of last month, a vet has only to show that he or she went to war and did a job where PTSD stressors could have happened.

“In the combat zone is good enough,” Bose said. “Basically, before, you had to prove you were in a combat situation, or you were in the line of fire.”

A VA-sanctioned psychiatrist or psychologist still has to confirm that the veteran suffers from PTSD before any benefits are available. The VA believes that confirmation should weed out fake claims.

The new rules, supported by the Disabled Veterans of America and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, are retroactive. Any veteran from any past war, including those previously denied, can file a claim.

According to the VA, most veterans who had PTSD eventually got benefits, so the new rules shouldn’t cost much more.

Though the new process might allow more vets to seek treatment, each case will be quicker and less cumbersome, according to the department.

As published in the SouthtownStar, Aug. 15, 2010, on page 12.

Surprise, grapes!

Out reporting at the VFW in Richton Park, Post 311. Story’s coming soon.

Parked the car out back, and look!

‘Mother suffers anguish of losing a second son’

One of my first stories to put some new Poynter learning into action: Does the story feel bigger than the news?

With this family, yes. Of course it does.

Antoinette Brandon knew the deal. She had been through it before.

The call comes, always late at night.

You rush to the hospital. So do family and friends. And there, you learn that your son has been killed.

First, it was 21-year-old Danzel Brandon, her eldest. His drunk friend drove them into a tree in December 2005 in Markham.

On Friday, it was 19-year-old Marcus Long, her youngest. A rival he was fistfighting pulled a gun on him in Hazel Crest late Thursday night and blasted him in the head at Elm Drive and Hazel Lane, his family said. Police found him a little before midnight.

Marcus died from his gunshot wound at 2:49 a.m. Friday at South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest. The medical examiner’s office ruled his death a homicide. As of Saturday, police had not arrested anyone.

Soon, Brandon will deal with the hospital and all the arrangements that must be made. With her remaining daughter, Stephanie Long, she will worry about an obituary.

Maybe today or Monday, she’ll talk with Hazel Crest police, her daughter said. That depends on whether she’s emotionally ready.

But Friday, still in shock, Brandon opened her doors to friends and family. She needed her community around her. She tucked her hair into a black hat and put on her “Peace in the streets” shirt. The 50-year-old welcomed dozens of folks to the grassy back yard, pulled
up chairs on the patio, offered cold drinks.

Behind the slab ranch house her children called home, she told stories about her younger son, the one whose wide brown eyes mirror her own.

“I was looking forward to growing old with my sons,” she said. “I had kids because I wanted them.”

South Suburban is where Long was born, on New Year’s Day of 1991. He was the hospital’s first baby of the year. He was in the newspaper then, too.

Brandon moved her family to Country Club Hills for a quieter upbringing. She raised her kids Christian at All Nations Community Church in Homewood.

Her youngest son got into some trouble. He spent 10 months in Cook County Jail. She tried to keep him away from a bad crowd. She sent him to Lincoln’s Challenge Academy, an alternative school for at-risk students, and encouraged him to apply to South Suburban College after
he finished in 2008. He was good with his hands, she said. And he was good to his mother.

Antoinette Brandon has barely begun to grieve again. Yet she also is thinking of another mother. She can do that already, while her son’s body still lies in the hospital.

“I feel sorry for that boy’s mom that’s responsible. She has to live with it, too.”

After all, she forgave her elder son’s killer. God helped her with that. And there’s no sense in hating.

“I believe in a clean heart,” she said. “It’s how I got my blessings and my strength.”

*

Published Aug. 7 in the SouthtownStar, page 5.

Page 2010-08 Mother suffers anguish || SouthtownStar

And in the Chicago Sun-Times 2010-08 Shooting victim’s brother killed in 2005 auto crash || CHICAGO SUN-TIMES

‘Did lawyer swindle World War II vet?’

Another catch-up to Steve Schmadeke. Drat that Schmads! For once, though, not a bad recovery.

A Tinley Park attorney with a sketchy past faces new disciplinary actions, accused of helping rip off an elderly veteran who wanted to move into a retirement village with his friends.

Gary R. Williams, who practices law from 16710 Oak Park Ave., is being investigated on allegations he never told Angelo Biondo he was drawing up a living trust instead of a will, according to formal charges the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission recently made public.

Williams, 67, also let Biondo’s son and daughter-in-law, Bernard and Sharon Biondo, of Oak Forest, sell him a dilapidated house in Chicago’s Mount Greenwood community owned by Sharon Biondo, when Angelo Biondo intended instead to move to the Smith Village retirement community in Chicago’s Beverly home, according to a lawsuit Angelo Biondo filed against Williams, which has since been settled.

Angelo Biondo, a decorated Navy veteran of World War II who served on the USS Salt Lake City, wanted to follow fellow vets to Smith Village, said Kathleen Biondo, another daughter-in-law.

He had let the eldest of his five sons, Bernard, handle his finances, she said.

“My father-in-law doesn’t complain about a thing,” she said. “He’s a good soldier. He doesn’t complain and he doesn’t ask questions. He trusted his son.”

Biondo served as a well-respected commander of American Legion Post 407 in Beverly, said Ken Cramer, who took over the post for Biondo in the 1990s.

“He has contributed to this country through his service in the armed forces, contributed to this country in that he created a business, created jobs for other people and set an example to others,” Cramer said…

Read the whole thing as published in the SouthtownStar, Aug. 4, 2010, on page 8.Printable: 2010-08 Did lawyer swindle World War II vet || The SouthtownStar

‘Another boy alleges molestation by Chicago Ridge mom’

A Chicago Ridge mother of three accused of molesting her eldest daughter’s four male teenage friends also victimized a 12-year-old boy, Cook County prosecutors said Monday.

Cathleen Miller was indicted on five felony counts, Assistant State’s Attorney Joe Crocker told Cook County Circuit Judge Joan M. O’Brien.

The indictment includes a predatory criminal sexual assault charge stemming from sexual contact with a 12-year-old boy, Crocker said.

That boy’s family has filed a lawsuit against Cathleen Miller, 40, according to Miller’s lawyer, John Russell.

And the boy’s 15-year-old sister has accused Miller’s husband, Richard Miller, of touching her leg in early June in an incident that resulted in a misdemeanor battery charge against him.

Cathleen Miller appeared in court in blue jail scrubs to hear the charges against her, which include criminal sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

The former secretary for the village of Chicago Ridge was arrested July 13.

Her five victims, the oldest of whom is 15, were molested in Miller’s home between February and June, according to prosecutors. They said Miller allegedly plied the boys with alcohol and marijuana and had sexual intercourse with two of them. She may not have any contact with her eldest daughter, whom police said witnessed some of the
acts. She’s at Cook County Jail awaiting trial.

Chicago Ridge Mayor Eugene Siegel did not want to comment Monday except to say Miller was fired after her arrest. The village had employed her for 25 years.

Miller denies any wrongdoing, her attorney said. Her lawyers previously have said Miller denied supplying alcohol or drugs to anyone, and that the friends of her 14-year-old daughter brought their own.

Miller’s attorneys have said she is a victim of domestic violence. In early June, she asked the court for an order of protection against her husband, saying he spit on her and pushed her to the ground. He was charged with domestic battery and was barred from their home.

On Monday, the charge and protection order were dismissed, prosecutors said. But he still faces a misdemeanor battery charge, Chicago Ridge Police Chief Robert Pyznarski said.

Meanwhile, their three daughters have been living with Cathleen Miller’s sister.

As published in the SouthtownStar, Aug. 3, 2010, on page 7.

‘Wig seller claims comments hurt her business’

She wouldn’t talk. Sigh. Too bad. The story could have been so much richer than the news.

A Palos Heights woman who sells wigs to Irish dancers has sued a dance instructor for making upbraiding comments about her hairpieces.

Terry O’Hare, of 4 Irish Dancers Inc. said John Cunniffe, of Massachusetts, cost her business with a Scottish wig maker. Cunniffe sent disparaging e-mails to the Camelia Rose wig company and posted comments on an Irish dancing chat site, she said in a defamation lawsuit filed July 27 in Cook County Circuit Court.

In October 2009, Cunniffe came to Chicago to judge the Irish dancing festival Pat Roche Feis, where O’Hare set up a booth, according to the suit. He sent an e-mail to Camelia Rose afterward, calling O’Hare a “sneaky mattress salesman,” and accusing her of selling fakes, the suit read. Then he responded to postings on an Irish dance message
board saying O’Hare was trying to pass off cheaper wigs as genuine Camelia Rose products.

“Based on the false allegations contained in Cunniffe’s e-mail and Web site postings, Camelia Rose revoked the distribution rights it had previously granted to Irish Dancers,” the lawsuit read.

The lawsuit seeks more than $50,000 in damages, plus costs. Messages left for O’Hare at her business and through her lawyer were not returned. Cunniffe could not be reached to comment.

As published in the SouthtownStar, Aug. 3, 2010, on page 4.