BELLEVILLE – Brad Van Hoose appreciates appellate judges who cleared his record in July, almost as much as he appreciates friends who saved his skin in 2016.
They pulled $5,000 together on a Friday, after 5 p.m., to spare him a weekend as a marked man in St. Clair County jail.
“I dodged a bullet,” Van Hoose said in an interview on Aug. 24, recalling his near four-year engagement with the state justice system. In all, he spent approximately $6,000 to fight a felony arrest for threatening a public official, which at a bench trial resulted in a misdemeanor assault conviction. But in the end, he succeeded on appeal with help from a public defender.
He said the whole point of fighting a misdemeanor that came with a $250 fine and court supervision – what some perceived as a slap on the wrist – was to defend his name and reputation.
“I wanted to clear my name. Period,” Van Hoose said. “I did not threaten anyone on that parking lot and was in complete control of my emotions.
“From top to bottom it was a rigged game and I got swindled in St. Clair County.”
Van Hoose, who lives in Belleville, plunged into Caseyville politics in 2013. He campaigned hard for village clerk Leonard Black, who sought to replace incumbent mayor George Chance, and won.
Van Hoose and Black knew each other as family, because Black’s son married Van Hoose’s sister.
On that election night, Van Hoose observed proceedings at the courthouse as one of several poll watchers. He said he heard that 47 ballots from Caseyville needed a second scan and would have to go down to former county clerk Bob Delaney’s office for that process. He objected, and former state’s attorney Brendan Kelly broke up an altercation between him and Delaney.
Van Hoose said he was suspicious that had those ballots been removed from poll watchers’ oversight, the possibility of error – unintentional or deliberate – was real.
“The ballots had gone down the elevator,” he said. “But they came directly back up.”
Later that night, Black was declared winner. He defeated Chance – the favored candidate of county Democrats – by four votes.
Van Hoose said he started having regrets after Black started spending time with Bob Romanik, who called himself the grim reaper of radio. Romanik’s last broadcast was April 10, after losing a battle with the Federal Communications Commission.
“I felt like I sold Caseyville a very bad used car,” Van Hoose said. “Romanik took control so fast.
“He gave Leonard sports tickets and a snow cone machine, and Leonard didn’t report them as gifts.”
Van Hoose said interim police chief Frank Moore hired Romanik’s son Stephen Romanik, but after Black hired Jose Alvarez as chief, Alvarez let Stephen go.
“That’s why Romanik came after Jose, to get rid of him,” Van Hoose said. “Leonard Black fired Jose to appease Bob.
“If trustees opposed Leonard, Bob would verbally abuse them on the air.
“Anyone who opposed Leonard opposed Bob.”
He said Black hired lawyers that Romanik recommended and legal bills tripled.
Black did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this story.
Van Hoose, meanwhile, listened to Romanik on radio.
On March 21, 2016, Romanik announced he would broadcast from the courthouse plaza the next day.
Van Hoose showed up at the plaza with a sign reading “Just Say No to Bob Romanik.”
“I threw him a curve by coming there,” Van Hoose said.
On air the next day, Romanik griped about a pedophile protester on the plaza.
Van Hoose said Romanik meant him because he was the only protester there.
“I went for a restraining order but the judge said it was free speech,” he said.
Van Hoose said he learned that Black made false statements about his character to his late father, who believed Black.
He said his father suffered from vascular dementia and congestive heart failure.
“Some times he remembered things, some times he didn’t,” Van Hoose said. “Some days he’d drive to Edwardsville, some days he’d drive to Effingham.
“He trusted Leonard Black but didn’t know what he had become.”
On April 15, 2016, Van Hoose saw Black on a parking lot on Caseyville’s Main Street.
“I addressed legal expenses at board meetings, but this was the first time I had seen him out in broad daylight,” Van Hoose said.
He shouted at Black, who entered Main Street Diner and came back out.
Romanik drove up and exchanged words with Van Hoose, who left.
At that point Romanik had filed to run for state Senate as a Republican and had tried to assemble a slate of candidates.
Van Hoose said some county Republicans wanted to censure him at their nominating convention on April 19.
He found old police reports on Romanik and provided copies for Caseyville Township Republican party chairman Steve Amos to distribute at the event.
The party adopted a censure motion.
Van Hoose said Romanik then filed a false criminal complaint against him claiming he sent cards and letters containing threats and white powder.
Van Hoose said federal agents questioned him about it.
“I insisted on giving them a DNA sample and my prints,” he said.
On May 22, 2016, then St. Clair County state’s attorney Brendan Kelly – now serving as head of the Illinois State Police – requested a special prosecutor to investigate the event on the parking lot.
The Illinois State’s Attorneys’ Appellate Prosecutor, where Kelly held a seat on the board of directors, assigned special prosecutor David Rands.
Van Hoose continued to attend village board meetings.
“I’m sitting in front row all summer and Leonard Black never told anyone he was worried about me,” he said. “In fact, he taunted me by taking video of me addressing the board.”
On Sept. 1, 2016, Van Hoose said, his late brother Danny told him a special prosecutor was investigating him.
“I told him I wouldn’t discontinue getting Leonard Black out of office,” he said.
On the morning of Sept. 23, 2016, a Friday, he asked Caseyville for all police reports of that year with his name on them.
He said officer Max Boyd called that afternoon and said he could come and pick up the information.
The call struck him as strange, and he said he’d pick it up Monday.
Boyd drove to Van Hoose’s home, and Belleville police cars also arrived.
“It was fun explaining it to people I’d known for many years,” he said.
Van Hoose learned a grand jury indicted him on a felony charge of threatening a public official in the performance of his duties.
He learned he needed to post $50,000 bond, ten percent if by cash. He also realized that if he had driven to Caseyville that Friday afternoon, police would have arrested him and impounded his vehicle.
“It would have been my motorcycle which is my prize possession or my van with all my tools in it,” he said.
“I knew this was a complete setup and a complete scam and, where’s it going to end up today? I figured I’d probably get another charge at the jail.”
He said he had worried because Romanik endorsed sheriff Rick Watson and stated on the air that they were good friends.
Boyd cuffed him with hands in front, making it possible to use his telephone.
Van Hoose said, “I wanted people to know where I was going.”
As Boyd steered west, Van Hoose called Steve Amos and a township officer from the Democratic side, the late Rick Donovan.
Amos contacted his brother Carl Amos, and friends called friends.
“When I got there most of my bond money had been raised and brought there,” he said.
“It really must have blown a hole into what they were doing. What they wanted to do was arrest me on a Friday afternoon and set somebody up to provoke me in custody.
“They were going to pour gas on me and light me on fire.”
Van Hoose retained attorney Jack Daugherty of Alton, and stood before former associate judge Randall Kelley without a jury in February 2017.
“If I had it to do over again, I would ask for a jury,” he said. “I really, truly regret not getting a jury of my peers. At the time I just wanted to get it behind me.”
Black and Romanik testified about words and actions on the parking lot, but their accounts didn’t match.
Kelley ruled that Van Hoose didn’t commit a felony because his words didn’t relate to Black’s official duties.
But, he convicted Van Hoose of misdemeanor assault, an offense he was never charged with by police, fined him $250, and placed him under court supervision for a year.
Van Hoose filed a motion on his own for reconsideration of his conviction, arguing among other points that a conflict of interest existed because judge Kelley once represented one of the two main witnesses, Romanik.
Kelley responded with a public statement that he didn’t remember it.
He denied reconsideration, and Van Hoose appealed.
Caseyville voters rendered a verdict of sorts in April 2017, when Black scored a dismal 26 percent in his bid for a second term.
“Everybody knew what he had done to me,” Van Hoose said.
He filed a complaint against Kelley with the Judicial Inquiry Board, but no inquiry resulted because Kelley retired.
“I think he thought he was headed for circuit judge,” Van Hoose said.
Appellate defender Richard Whitney of Carbondale represented Van Hoose in his appeal, which ended in exoneration a month ago on July 23.
“While there was evidence presented of a strong dislike between the parties, that alone is not sufficient to overcome Illinois’s long standing case law that words alone are insufficient for a finding of assault,” Justice Randy Moore wrote.
He found neither Black nor Romanik testified that Van Hoose made any physical movement or gestures of a threatening nature toward Black.
He found Black testified that Van Hoose was 15, maybe 20 feet away. He found no evidence that Van Hoose was known as a violent person.
He found Black testified that Van Hoose never called him names before or directed offensive personal comments towards him in village board meetings.
Van Hoose said, “The Fifth District negated St. Clair County and that’s a big deal.”
The opinion will bind Fifth District judges and carry weight in other districts.
“I like that part,” Van Hoose said. “That’s good for somebody else.”