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MADISON - ST. CLAIR RECORD

Friday, April 19, 2024

Newly elected St. Clair County board member gets felony charge expunged

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James Haywood of Cahokia, who ran for St. Clair County board with a long record of arrests, will take office with no record except improper lane usage.  

On Nov. 10, Associate Judge Zina Cruse expunged a felony charge that he violated an absentee ballot in 2013.  

State’s attorney Brendan Kelly dismissed the charge last year.  

Cruse also expunged charges of driving under the influence, resisting arrest, shoving an officer, and committing battery and criminal trespass.  

Haywood beat all but one of the charges that Cruse expunged.  

He pleaded guilty of criminal trespass and paid $200 in 2012, in a plea bargain that cleared him of the battery charge.  

This June, he beat a charge of driving under the influence by paying $2,000 for improper lane usage.  

Last year, Kelly dismissed two charges that Haywood resisted arrest in Cahokia.  

Haywood beat a charge that he pushed and shoved an Alorton police officer in 2008, when the officer failed to show up for a hearing.  

In 2003, a judge dismissed a charge of driving under the influence after Haywood completed a period of court supervision.

Haywood, Democrat, was elected to the St. Clair County Board in District 25, having defeated his Republican opponent Ron Gerlach by a margin of 76 to 24 percent. He earned 2,276 votes to Gerlach's 731.

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