UI conflicts with Piland

By Craig Colbrook

Champaign County State’s Attorney John Piland’s failure to prosecute campus crimes has led to a rift between the State’s Attorney’s office and the University, campus officials said.

O.J. Clark, chief of University police, said while the University has had previous problems with the State’s Attorney, the current dispute is focused on two incidents.

“These were felony theft cases involving theft of parking funds,” Clark said. “One involved taking money out of the meters, the other involving substantial sums of money collected from the meters.”

Clark said police caught suspects in both cases and even recovered the stolen funds, but no trial was ever held.

“The State’s Attorney told us he would prosecute the cases if we gave him the money we recovered in our investigations,” Clark said. “In one of the cases, that money came to over $1,000. It was our money, but he said he would not prosecute unless we give the money back to the criminal so he could pay his fines. The University, of course, refused and the cases were dropped.”

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Piland, however, said the University made the decision to drop the cases.

“I gave the U of I the option of having the cases prosecuted and getting their restitution,” he said. “They opted not to because they wanted the money sooner. It was their decision.”

Piland said the University would be able to recover the money in civil court after the criminal trial, but University spokeswoman Robin Kaler said civil court only promised the possibility that the University could recover its stolen funds. Kaler also said she did not think it was a fair policy.

“I don’t care what kind of legal maneuvers someone wants to use, it’s simply not right to make the victim of the crime pay the criminal’s fine, and that’s what happened to us,” she said.

Kaler said the current dispute is like victimizing the University a second time.

“It’s like having your car stolen and being told they caught the guy, but you can’t have your car back,” she said.

While the State’s Attorney’s office was deciding how to proceed with the cases, Kaler said the University was instructed not to fire the suspects so they kept their jobs for nearly a year after the crimes. But Piland said he never told the University not to fire them and simply expressed concerns about how such an action would affect his pending cases.

“They can fire a person. I have no problem with that,” he said. “I just want to make sure there’s not a settlement agreement or a discharge hearing that undermines my prosecution.”

Piland said the University has taken such actions before.

“The U of I has been involved in a course of action that has impeded our prosecutions for sometime,” he said.

Kaler said those concerns come second to the University.

“If someone is a threat to others or to our campus, we’re not going to just keep them around,” she said.

Piland’s actions have interfered with the University’s duty as a public institution, Kaler said.

“It’s frustrating, because as a citizen you count on the state to help protect you,” she said. “And we, as stewards of taxpayer’s money, expect some help in that stewardship.”