Less than two weeks out from the start of Tammy Duckworth’s trial, the people of Illinois are learning even more about why the Rod Blagojevich appointee was so eager to again silence whistleblowers with taxpayer-funded hush money.
Capitol Fax reports that plaintiff Christine Butler informed Duckworth via email that five non-employees of the Anna Veterans’ Home, including Jessie Bell, were permitted to care for a veteran without background checks:
The families of veterans in the home are allowed to hire people to provide additional care for residents. The day before Butler sent the e-mail, five people were brought in to care for an unidentified veteran. “The appearance of these individuals was simply awful, along with there (sic) personal hygiene,” Butler told Duckworth…Butler claimed in her conversation with me yesterday that the facility’s acting manager had hired the five people out of a local Public Aid office. She claims they were sitting in the lobby, and were asked if they needed work.
Defendant Duckworth took swift action after learning that outsiders such as Bell – a convicted felon currently serving a 20-year prison sentence for committing second-degree murder, were allowed to care for our veterans.
Unfortunately for Illinois veterans, the swift action was against the whistleblower – not against the felon or the supervisor responsible for his presence at the home.
Defendant Duckworth recklessly fired Butler days after she filed a complaint with the Inspector General’s office regarding the unscreened outside help.
The news directly contradicts Duckworth’s latest talking points about her trial:
…if your job is to serve veterans, and you’re not doing your job, yeah, I’m going to come after you. — Tammy Duckworth, 7/23/16
We now know that the only people Defendant Duckworth went after were the courageous VA employees who blew the whistle on veteran abuse.
Second-degree murderer Jessie Bell
The incompetence displayed by Defendant Duckworth as a Blagojevich appointee directly threatened the well-being of veterans and the whistleblowers seeking to protect them.
Read more about this breaking development in the Tammy Duckworth VA whistleblower retaliation trial:
Whistleblower says unchecked criminal was allowed to care for a veteran
Capitol Fax
By Rich Miller
August 3, 2016
http://bit.ly/2aCielx
…
[Plaintiff Christine] Butler sent Duckworth, who was then the director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, an e-mail on April 28, 2007 about a troubling incident at the veterans’ facility, where she worked until Duckworth personally fired her.
The families of veterans in the home are allowed to hire people to provide additional care for residents. The day before Butler sent the e-mail, five people were brought in to care for an unidentified veteran. “The appearance of these individuals was simply awful, along with there (sic) personal hygiene,” Butler told Duckworth.
…
According to her e-mail, one of the five allegedly called a contractor a “queer,” and Butler claimed she’d heard second-hand from her union president that an upset resident had asked that he not be allowed back in.
- This is how it’s described in Butler’s lawsuit filed in 2009…
On April 18, 2007, Plaintiff Butler sent an e-mail communication to Defendant Duckworth regarding an incident in which five non-employees of the IDVA had come to the Anna Veterans Home the previous day and requested permission of Defendant Simms to provide care to one of the veteran residents of the Home. Defendant Simms had granted them permission to do so, despite the fact that there were obvious concerns about the appearance, hygiene, and conduct of the individuals – and Defendant Simms had not yet conducted a background check on them. By the next day, the five ostensible care-providers had become abusive, both to the veteran and a contractor working at the facility, as well as loud and disruptive, and were required to leave the facility
- However, Butler claimed in her conversation with me yesterday that the facility’s acting manager had hired the five people out of a local Public Aid office. She claims they were sitting in the lobby, and were asked if they needed work.
Butler claims the person who caused most of the trouble that she wrote Duckworth about in her e-mail was Jessie Bell. A background check would’ve likely found some criminal conduct in his past. But no background check was performed, Butler told me, because her supervisor said she needed to hire people “ASAP.”
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The Kirk campaign sent over Bell’s rap sheet…
- 1998: Guilty Of Felony For Possession Of Stolen Vehicle;
- 2000: Guilty Of Felony For Knowingly Damaging Property, Guilty Of Misdemeanor For Aggravated Battery, Battery Causing Bodily Harm (Judici.com, Accessed 8/1/16);
- 2004: Guilty Of Misdemeanor Battery Causing Bodily Harm (Judici.com, Accessed 8/1/16);
- 2006: Guilty Felony Aggressively Fleeing Police (Judici.com, Accessed 8/1/16);
- 2008: Guilty Misdemeanor Domestic Battery (Judici.com, Accessed 8/1/16);
- 2009: Guilty Felony Of Aggravated Battery In A Public Place (Judici.com, Accessed 8/1/16);
- 2012: Guilty Felony Retail Theft (Judici.com, Accessed 8/1/16);
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2014: Guilty Felony Domestic Battery With 3 Prior Convictions (Judici.com, Accessed 8/1/16);
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And then there was this…
- 2014: Guilty Felony 2nd Degree Murder (Judici.com, Accessed 8/1/16).
In 2015, Jessie Bell Was Convicted Of 2nd Degree Murder And Sentenced To 20 Years In Prison. (Christy Hendricks, “Anna man sentenced to 20 years for 2nd-degree murder,” KFVS, 8/3/15)
Jessie Bell Is Currently Serving His Time At The Pinckneyville Correctional Center In Pinckneyville, Illinois. (Illinois Department of Corrections, Access 8/1/16)
Oof.
“Not one time was any corrective action plan put in place to ensure that this kind of activity never took place again,” Butler claimed yesterday. She filed a complaint with the Inspector General’s office on April 30th. Duckworth fired her in person days later.
…
…that alleged problem of unchecked outsiders being brought in to assist veterans most definitely should’ve been addressed, and Duckworth should have “gone after” the people responsible. They got lucky that nothing really bad happened.