Channahon mayor gets 6 months of home detention on tax charges
By Lauren FitzPatrick Sun-Times Media lfitzpatrick@suntimes.com January 17, 2012 11:15AM
Channahon Mayor Joe Cook at Dirksen Federal Courthouse for sentencing,Tuesday, January 17 2011. | John H. White~Chicago Sun-Times.
Updated: February 19, 2012 8:08AM
Channahon Mayor Joe Cook was sentenced Tuesday to six months of home confinement for failing to file federal income-tax returns.
Cook — who’s been mayor of the southwest suburb since 2003 — faced six misdemeanor charges accusing him of failing to pay income taxes between 2005 and 2008, a period in which he made $290,000 as mayor, as a field engineer for Will County and from his private consulting business.
Cook, 45, pleaded guilty in October to two of those counts, admitting that he didn’t file a personal tax return for 2005 and a corporate return for 2007, in a deal in which he’s to pay restitution of $14,752.
Prosecutors had asked for Cook to serve up to a year in prison, but instead he will serve two years of probation . He cited his lack of a criminal record and the fact that he’s the sole caretaker of his blind, cancer-stricken father, his wheelchair-bound arthritic mother, a sister with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and brother with Down syndrome.
Cook, who has stepped down from his post as board president at the Will County Governmental League, apologized Tuesday to the judge as his family and girlfriend looked on.
“My parents taught me a lesson a long time ago that I’ve forgotten — shirking your responsibilities is a selfish act,” he told the judge. “This will never happen again.”
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