A brief name recognition quiz: Michael Madigan, Michal McClain, Anne Pramaggiore, Carlos Acosta.
Although all four have something in common, one of these things is not like the others: the first three earned federal prison sentences for their respective roles in Commonwealth Edison bribing Statehouse officials in exchange for favorable legislation.
The fourth is a Department of Children and Family Services caseworker sentenced to state prison in the long, sad story of AJ Freund, whose tragic death at age 5 in 2019 made him the unfortunate poster child for a deeply broken state agency. (For full, painful background, visit shawlocal.com/tags/aj-freund.)
Astute observers will note the four are listed in descending order of punishment length: Madigan, the former House speaker, is appealing the 90-month sentence handed down in mid-June. McClain and Pramaggiore each recently earned 24-month stints. Acosta got a six-month sentence in June 2024 plus 30 months of probation, 200 hours of community service and orders to pay $1,000 to the Children’s Advocacy Center.
This isn’t just apples and oranges, but two entirely different grocery aisles. The shorter sentence didn’t come to mind while reading all the Capitol News Illinois updates on the ComEd punishments, but surfaced thanks to two paragraphs at the end of a wholly different CNI report.
On Tuesday, Beth Hundsdorfer wrote about a DCFS caseworker once assigned to a foster child whose May 2024 death is newly in the news as the agency draws ire for failing to release reports or a timeline of its actions because a St. Clair County grand jury has indicted a foster parent and that woman’s mother on charges of first-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, aggravated domestic battery, intimidation, unlawful restraint and domestic battery.
That tragedy is its own important story, on top of new reporting about the caseworker in question moving from Lutheran Child and Family Services to direct DCFS employment despite an obviously concerning track record of arrests and protective orders.
There, at the very end, are a few sentences noting that “while caseworker criminal accountability in child death cases is rare, there is precedent … Acosta was convicted of two counts of child endangerment after being accused of failing to protect A.J. before his death in 2019, despite evidence of repeated abuse and neglect by his parents. This was the first time child endangerment charges against a state welfare caseworker were successfully brought in Illinois.”
It’s the feds who put away corrupt political figures, and county prosecutors taking on DCFS’ shortcomings. But in neither case do prison sentences seem to have the deterrent effect often presumed when gavels drop.
We’ll be here again, for corruption convictions and DCFS tragedies, because the structures enabling both crimes remain largely unchallenged,
• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.
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