Sciarrone v. Amrich
| Decision Date | 03 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 19 C 4584,19 C 4584 |
| Parties | ANTHONY P. SCIARRONE, BILLY DICKERSON, and JOSEPH RIVERA, Plaintiffs, v. CHARLES AMRICH, WAYNE SCHNELL, MARK BEESON, and THE VILLAGE OF ISLAND LAKE, ILLINOIS, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
OPINION AND ORDER
Plaintiffs Anthony Sciarrone, Billy Dickerson, and Joseph Rivera used to work for the Village of Island Lake's ("the Village") police department. According to Plaintiffs, they uncovered evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Defendant Charles Amrich, the Village's mayor; Defendant Wayne Schnell, a former Building Commissioner and part-time police officer for the Village; and Defendant Mark Beeson, a former Village Trustee. Plaintiffs further allege that Amrich, Schnell, and Beeson ("the Individual Defendants") attempted to frustrate the resulting criminal investigations and retaliated against Plaintiffs by forcing them out of their jobs. Plaintiffs filed this lawsuit against the Individual Defendants and the Village. In their complaint, Plaintiffs claim that the Individual Defendants violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO"), 18 U.S.C. § 1961 et seq. (Count I), Defendants violated the Illinois Whistleblower Act, 740 Ill. Comp. Stat. 174/1 et seq. (Count II),1 and the Village engaged in retaliatory discharge under Illinois common law (Count III). Defendants now move to dismiss the entirety of Plaintiffs' complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6).
The Court dismisses the RICO claim without prejudice because Plaintiffs have not adequately alleged a "pattern" of racketeering activity. Because the RICO claim is the only claim over which the Court has original jurisdiction, the Court relinquishes its jurisdiction over the Illinois Whistleblower Act and retaliatory discharge claims.
Schnell applied to become a police officer with the Village in 2006. He served part-time in this position until 2010, when he resigned after an internal investigation uncovered evidence that he had sexually harassed fellow female police officers. Later, in the spring of 2013, Schnell managed Amrich's campaign to become the Village's mayor. Amrich's "ticket" also included Beeson, who was running to become a Trustee for the Village. After Amrich won election as mayor, Schnell requested a review of the internal investigation report that led to his 2010 resignation from the Village police force. Sergeant Nicholas Deuter, a Village police officer and Schnell's friend, subsequently prepared a report (the "Deuter Report") that cleared Schnell of the previous harassment allegations. The Deuter Report relied, at least in part, upon affidavits from female police officers recanting their allegations of sexual harassment. As a result of the Deuter Report, the Village "reinstated" Schnell to his former jobs as a part-time police officer and "Building Commissioner/Code Enforcement Officer" in June 2013.3 Doc. 1 ¶ 11, 13.
It is unclear for how long Schnell served in these positions. But Schnell presumably resigned from the police force at some point because in January 2018, he again applied to become a part-time police officer. Sciarrone, the Village's Chief of Police at the time, assigned police officer Charles Mader to investigate Schnell's background in connection with his application. The investigation revealed that Schnell had lied on his 2006 police application by not disclosing a thirty-day suspension he had received at his previous job for avoiding work duties. After Sciarrone assigned Dickerson, another Village police officer, to participate in the investigation, Sciarrone, Dickerson, and Mader determined that the Deuter Report had relied upon "false" affidavits, i.e., the female police officers had lied when they signed the affidavits, which had been prepared by Schnell and presented to the officers by Deuter. Id. ¶ 12.
As it proceeded, the investigation began to focus on Schnell's relationship with Amrich and Beeson. Sciarrone, Dickerson, Mader, and Rivera, who came in as an extra investigator, discovered that Schnell did favors for Beeson while Amrich "look[ed] the other way." Id. ¶ 15. For instance, Schnell knew that Beeson was building a driveway at his house that was wider than what was allowed by village ordinance; he knew that the seawall at Beeson's home included a substantial amount of rock that the Village—not Beeson— had purchased; and he knew that Beeson had not obtained the required approval to modify the shoreline near his house. Yet Schnell did nothing, even though he was the Village's only Code Enforcement Officer and Building Commission employee. In addition, Schnell violated Village regulations by not keeping detailed records of his use of a government-assigned vehicle, by allowing his wife to drive the vehicle, by reporting excessive mileage, and by failing to identify which vehicle was driven when he submitted gas receipts. Amrich was aware of these violations, but he "did nothing." Id. ¶ 18. An unidentified Village Trustee also apprised Plaintiffs that Schnell and Beeson had solicited donations for various events from businesses in the Village without properly depositing the donations with the Village's Chief Financial Officer.
Based on their investigation, Plaintiffs became "[c]onvinced that Defendants had entered into a mutually beneficial corrupt enterprise." Id. ¶ 20. As Plaintiffs saw it, Amrich and the Village Board had rewarded Schnell for his help in getting Amrich elected by placing him in "two relatively high-paying Village posts," and in return, Schnell had allowed Beeson to violate Village ordinances that Schnell was supposed to enforce. Id. Plaintiffs also believed that Amrich "was countenancing if not encouraging the raiding of the Village fisc" and had allowed "Schnell to purge his personnel file of incriminating material." Id. Plaintiffs provided the results of their investigation to both the McHenry County State's Attorney and the FBI. The State's Attorney began investigating Beeson and Schnell, and the FBI opened a criminal investigation into the situation as well.
Deuter—the police officer who had written the 2013 report clearing Schnell of the sexual harassment allegations against him—found out about these investigations, and he told Schnell about them in April 2018. It was then that "Defendants entered upon a course of conduct designed to influence or obstruct [the] investigation and/or retaliate against Plaintiffs for having instituted it." Id. ¶ 23. On April 3, Schnell demanded that Sciarrone tell him why he was under investigation; Sciarrone refused. The next day, Beeson demanded that Amrich "give him the particulars of the investigation" and order "Sciarrone to stop the investigation." Id. ¶ 25. On April 5, David McArdle, the Village attorney, let Sciarrone know that Schnell wanted to purge his file of the information relating to his 2010 resignation. On April 24, Schnell sent a letter to Amrich and the Village Trustees asking them to stop the investigations. Two days later, Beeson arranged for the Village Board to vote on ordering Sciarrone to disclose information about the criminal investigations. On May 4, Schnell informed Sciarrone that Amrich had authorized Schnell to review his file in the presence of Sciarrone and McArdle.
On June 21, 2018, a McHenry County grand jury subpoenaed all records of building construction at Beeson's residence. During a July 26 executive session of the Village Board, Beeson complained about the investigation. In response to Beeson's complaints, McArdle suggested that firing Plaintiffs would be an effective means of stopping the investigation. Plaintiffs found out about this discussion, and on July 30, Rivera and Mader sent a memo to Sciarrone, Amrich, and Trustee Jennifer Villarreal. In the memo, Rivera and Mader complained about the recipients' failure to protect them, Sciarrone, and Dickerson as members of the police department actively engaged in a criminal investigation.4 Rivera and Mader wanted the recipients to stop Schnell and Beeson from making certain comments and to immediately end the Village Board's attempt to remove Rivera and Mader from their positions. Rivera and Mader threatened to forward the memo to all news outlets servicing the Village if this did not happen.
Meanwhile, Schnell was falsely telling the Village Board that Plaintiffs were harassing him and "carrying out a 'vendetta.'" Id. ¶ 41. In August 2018, "at Beeson's request" and "with Amrich's concurrence," the Village hired a law firm to investigate Sciarrone and Dickerson based on their alleged harassment of Schnell and Beeson. Id. ¶ 34. The true goal of this investigation, however, was to find "a possible reason to terminate" Sciarrone's and Dickerson's employment. Id. Amrich relied upon the report generated by the law firm's investigation to place Sciarrone on administrative leave on September 27. The Village terminated Sciarrone four weeks later, on October 25, and Mader soon thereafter. In November, the Village informed Rivera that he had to switch from his position as an investigator to patrolman if he wanted to remain a part of the police force. Rivera resigned instead. On January 18, 2019, the Village discharged Dickerson from his position as a Village police officer.5
A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) challenges the sufficiency of the complaint, not its merits. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6); Gibson v. City of Chicago, 910 F.2d 1510, 1520 (7th Cir. 1990). In considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the Court accepts as true all well-pleaded facts in the plaintiff's complaint and draws all reasonable inferences from those facts in the plaintiff's favor. Kubiak v. City of Chicago, 810 F.3d 476, 480-81 (7th Cir. 2016). To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, the complaint must not only provide the defendant with fair notice of a claim's basis but must also be facially plausible. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S....
To continue reading
Request your trial