'Start Here': Impeachment report and Kamala Harris
A former Chicago police commander who pleaded guilty to stealing more than $360,000 in Social Security payments intended for his dead mother managed to avoid jail time at sentencing on Tuesday.
A former Chicago police commander who pleaded guilty to stealing more than $360,000 in Social Security payments intended for his dead mother managed to avoid jail time at sentencing on Tuesday.
Kenneth Johnson, a 32-year veteran of the force who led the Englewood patrol district his last two years on the force, was sentenced to two years probation and ordered to serve six months of community confinement after pleading guilty to theft of government funds earlier this year.
Federal prosecutors had requested that he be sentenced to 18 to 24 months in prison.
The sentencing came just a day after Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot fired the city's police superintendent over what she referred to as "ethical lapses" and “flawed decision-making.”
Johnson, who often was lauded by the city for reductions in homicides and shootings in his district, retired abruptly in 2018 after it was discovered he'd been collecting monthly Social Security payments intended for his mother, who died in 1994 at age 72.
The Social Security Administration said it was never notified of her death, which is why it continued to deposit her monthly Social Security benefits into a joint bank account she shared with her son, prosecutors said.