Two of the 77 Cook County judges running for retention in November claim homestead exemptions on Will County houses they have owned for years, Injustice Watch discovered as part of research for its 2024 Judicial Election Guide.
Illinois law requires judges to live in the jurisdiction they serve and allows homeowners to benefit from homestead exemptions only on their “principal residence.”
One of the judges said he has lived in Cook County since he ran for judge in 2017, the same year he began living apart from his wife, although they remain married. She still lives in the Aurora home where they raised their family, according to his attorney and campaign consultant.
The other, Judge E. Kenneth Wright Jr. — who’s been a judge since 1994 and holds a powerful judicial position presiding over the first municipal district — offered no explanation when asked by Injustice Watch.
“I don’t have time right now,” Wright said during a recess in his Daley Center courtroom. “We’ll call you when we’re ready.”
Wright, 83, has claimed a homestead exemption, a tax break for homeowners who used their property as their home, since 1978 — long before he became a judge, records show.
But in 2018, while a sitting Cook County judge, Wright successfully applied for a second senior citizen exemption on his Will County property, records and interviews show.
Wright was required to present a birth certificate or government identification to verify his age and sign a sworn affidavit attesting he occupied the Joliet property as his “principal residence” to qualify for the senior homestead exemption.
As the only taxpayer of record listed for the property, Wright alone was eligible to apply for the senior exemption, said Dale Butalla, the Will County supervisor of assessments.
Butalla’s Freedom of Information officer would not provide a copy of the senior exemption application, citing privacy protections.
The combined homestead and senior exemptions trimmed Wright’s property tax bill by about $1,400 last year. Records show Wright also owns properties in Cook County, including a condo in River North and a single-family home in Morgan Park, but he does not claim homestead or senior exemptions on any of his known Cook County properties.
The doorbell didn’t work at the Joliet home 40 miles from the Daley Center where Wright oversees 40 other judges in his role as presiding judge.
A neighbor there said she sees Wright mowing the lawn on weekends at the home and vacant lot he owns next door.
A candidate transformed
Also claiming a homestead exemption in Will County is Cook County Juvenile Court Judge Shannon O’Malley, who owns a two-story Aurora home with his wife. They have claimed the exemption together since 2004.
Through his attorney, O’Malley said his homestead exemption at the Aurora house is proper since he no longer resides at the family home because he is living apart from his wife, although they remain married. In 2017, the same year he decided to run for Cook County judge, he signed an apartment lease in Cook County, records show.
To prove Cook County residency, his attorney Steven Laduzinsky presented a 6-inch stack of car and apartment leases, utility bills, and junk mail — even an expired driver’s license — from O’Malley’s residency in Cook County since 2017 as he began his campaign for judge.
It’s not the first time O’Malley, 62, has changed his residence to coincide with a political candidacy. In 2004, he unsuccessfully ran as a Republican for Cook County state’s attorney — but under a different name.
Before he legally changed his name to Shannon O’Malley, Phillip Spiwak was a hustling lawyer and political candidate living in Aurora with his wife and two children.
Under his birth name, Spiwak ran for appellate court judge in Will County as a Republican in 1999. His wife was chair and treasurer of his political committee. He lost.
In 2004, he ran for Cook County state’s attorney against Democratic incumbent Richard Devine. Described in press reports as a self-employed Chicago attorney, Spiwak did not register a campaign fundraising committee and did not conduct media interviews or respond to phone calls during the race, according to news reports and government records.
He lost with 29% of the vote.
His residency was never questioned publicly during the 2004 campaign.
But in summer 2004, as the race against Devine was underway, Spiwak sold his former Aurora home and bought the one where he and his wife now claim a homeowners’ exemption.
Laduzinsky, O’Malley’s attorney, said he legitimately moved to Chicago before running for Cook County office in 2004.
“It’s a legit move. He moved out of the house, moved to Chicago, changed his driver’s license, and voter registration. He did everything to show he moved to Chicago,” Laduzinsky said.
Spiwak declared bankruptcy in 2005, reporting debts of $480,000, including two mortgages on the Aurora home in Will County and car loans, federal court records show.
Then in 2010, he ran for Will County Circuit Court judge as a Republican, again listing his family’s house in Aurora as his residence. He and his wife again served as chairs of his political committee. Again, he lost.
But Spiwak’s political fortunes improved seven years later after he recast key aspects of his identity.
He legally changed his name to Shannon O’Malley in the Will County Circuit Court in 2012. He got an apartment in Cook County in 2017 and registered to vote as a Democrat. And this time, he filed to run in a north suburban judicial subcircuit poised to flip to the Democrats.
The 13th subcircuit — which includes the northwest suburbs of Schaumburg, Palatine, Wheeling, Hanover Park, and Barrington — had been a Republican stronghold but would sweep in Democrats to three bench seats that year.
Spiwak’s name change, first reported by Injustice Watch, made him the subject of biting news coverage. Powerful Democrats called his seemingly Irish and female name a “naked attempt to improve his electoral prospects.”
He did not participate in bar evaluations, and so the leading bar associations found him not recommended. The Chicago Council of Lawyers presumed Shannon O’Malley was a woman, writing: “The council finds her not recommended for the circuit court.”
He told reporters he changed his name to honor a mentor and surrogate father. His campaign video said O’Malley was orphaned at age 11.
He self-funded his 2018 political committee with $37,615. Most of it — $32,165 — went to a political consulting company run by 46th Ward Democratic Committeeman Sean Tenner.
The 30-second campaign video Tenner produced for O’Malley doesn’t clearly identify O’Malley’s gender or even what he looks like.
Tenner told Injustice Watch he didn’t verify where O’Malley was living and only became aware of the name change after the election. “My interaction with him was very limited in that campaign,” Tenner said.
‘Don’t tell her I live here’
In his 2018 run for Cook County judge, O’Malley prevailed with 51% of the vote.
Mary Kay Dawson, a political consultant hired by this year’s Cook County retention class, responded to Injustice Watch inquiries about O’Malley’s residency in an email: “He asked me to inform you he doesn’t live in Aurora and hadn’t for 7 years. He and his wife are legally separated.”
In a subsequent interview, she said O’Malley “filed legal separation papers. … He transferred the house to her name. … He is no longer holding the property in Aurora jointly.”
None of Dawson’s statements was true, according to a subsequent interview with O’Malley’s attorney Laduzinsky.
“There was not a legal filing for separation, and there are reasons for that,” Laduzinsky said. “Even an agreed upon divorce can be financially devastating.”
O’Malley’s family home in Aurora remains under joint ownership with his wife, Laduzinsky confirmed. She claims the Will County home ownership exemption. He still pays part of the mortgage, but he does not deduct the property benefit on his individual tax return, Laduzinsky said.
“I’ve met him in the apartment in Schaumburg,” Laduzinsky said. “It’s furnished.”
When Injustice Watch telephoned his Aurora home on a recent afternoon, his wife answered and turned to her husband.
“Hey, Phil, it’s the reporter,” she was heard saying.
In the background, O’Malley said: “Don’t tell her I live here.”
He declined to come to the phone.
Sanctions are rare
The judicial residency requirement is a basic test of public trust, said Kent Redfield, a political science professor at the University of Illinois Springfield who reviewed Injustice Watch’s findings.
“The general principle behind all of this is that residency is an indication that candidates have a connection and commitment to the area that they’re elected from,” Redfield said.
“If a judge is a resident of a district and owns a second house outside the district and then files for a tax break on the basis of residency on the house outside the district, that calls into question the honesty of the judge.
“If the judge abandons their residency in the district and becomes a resident outside the district, they are violating the election code. Both of these actions are unethical and a violation of the public trust.”
But sanctions against judges who violate residency requirements are rare in Illinois.
Only two sitting judges have been disciplined by the Illinois Courts Commission for residency requirement violations in the last 25 years.
The Illinois State Board of Elections, which oversees judicial elections, does not verify whether candidates for judge live in the county or circuit where they run for office, board spokesperson Matt Dietrich said.
“There is no verification process for looking into the residence they file on their statement of candidacy or nominating petitions,” Dietrich said.
State election authorities instead rely on political opponents and citizens to challenge judicial candidates about where they actually live, Dietrich said.
Such challenges are unlikely when judges such as Wright and O’Malley are up for retention because they have no opponents.
Voters simply punch a “yes” or “no.”
For the average citizen, the consequences for falsely claiming a Will County homestead exemption are manageable: Officials there simply collect one year’s worth of erroneously claimed taxes and end the exemption for future years.
But for elected officials improperly claiming the exemption, the political fallout can be explosive.
In 2004, the Illinois Courts Commission removed then-Cook County Judge Francis X. Golniewicz III from the bench after finding he lied that he lived in Chicago when he actually lived in the suburbs.
And in 2016, the commission censured Cook County Judge Beatriz Santiago for being deceptive about where she lived. She was suspended from the bench for six months but then resumed her duties.
News coverage of the Golniewicz case suggests judicial residency violations were casually accepted at the time: Supervisors in the Maywood Courthouse kept a master list titled “Real Addresses of 4th District Judges,” so they could contact judges at home in case of emergency.
Grace Asiegbu contributed reporting.
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