SPRINGFIELD – Attorney Margaret Lowery of Belleville didn’t harm Chief Circuit Judge Andrew Gleeson as he alleged, a hearing board of the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission ruled on Nov. 10.
Board members found commission administrator Jerome Larkin didn’t establish that Lowery made statements against Gleeson in 2018 during his retention election campaign.
They found fault with her initial answers to the commission’s questions, and they recommended 60 days of suspension for that. Larkin had asked for two years or more.
The hearing board consisted of Janaki Nair of Peoria, Stephen Pacey of Paxton, and Peggy LeCompte of East St. Louis. The Supreme Court will consider their recommendation.
Gleeson filed a complaint against Lowery after voters retained him.
He claimed she impugned his integrity with statements she knew were false or made with reckless disregard for the truth, and that her statements appeared on two websites and a Facebook page.
He also claimed she made improper statements to an employee of website developer Go Daddy.
The board heard the matter on July 21 and 22.
Their report stated that Lowery got involved in a campaign against Gleeson’s retention in the summer of 2018.
They found she attended two meetings, one at her home, and the group decided to set up a website and communicate through Facebook.
They found she agreed to purchase domain names and set up websites.
They found the group agreed on the name Fire the Liar, and she purchased it through Go Daddy with funds from the group.
They found she designed and built the website, and put basic content about the group and links to news about Gleeson on it.
They found she purchased Fire Judge Gleeson as a second name that would direct anyone who clicked on it to Fire the Liar.
They found the group requested a second name because Facebook blocked access to Fire the Liar.
“After she built the frame, she turned the website over to others,” they wrote.
They found that on Oct. 4, 2018, Fire the Liar accused Gleeson of opposing the retention of Circuit Judge Zina Cruse due to her race and gender.
Fire the Liar called a campaign against Cruse “the brain child of Gleeson and others to run a female minority judge off the bench to preserve their white male privilege.”
Fire the Liar claimed the campaign was a front for the National Association for Majority Equality, “which Judge Gleeson supports.”
Fire the Liar stated, “That is why they are targeting a judge of color and that is why their members are exclusively white.”
Board members found that according to Lowery’s testimony she never posted any content about Gleeson.
They found she testified that she didn’t control content and that items didn’t have to be submitted through her.
They found Guy DonCarlos posted his views, “regardless of whether the material was caustic or inflammatory and typically without hiding his identity.”
“Given the nature of his posts, at the time Facebook suspended DonCarlos’s ability to use Facebook,” they wrote.
They found Donna Ayres frequently and openly posted her views.
They found Lowery “allowed persons she had no basis to expect would exercise any restraint to have access to the website.”
“We found that behavior extremely troubling and the posts themselves highly offensive,” they wrote.
They found Gleeson charged that Lowery made the posts herself but evidence didn’t demonstrate that she did.
“Judge Gleeson had no personal knowledge or direct evidence that respondent posted these statements,” they wrote.
The board also investigated the source of statements on a Facebook page that belonged to Lowery.
On Oct. 23, 2018, a post on the page claimed Gleeson was in a secret order of Hibernians and that’s why he used the Irish clover.
It stated, “Wanna guess how many of its members are persons of color? None.”
A picture showed a figure wearing a robe with Gleeson’s name and a clover on it, with a hood, near a Confederate flag and a noose.
“Judge Gleeson is not and has never been a member of the Ku Klux Klan,” they wrote.
“Judge Gleeson does belong to the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which is a Catholic charitable organization, not a racist group.”
They found it was the type of material DonCarlos might create.
“Respondent was charged with posting the text and picture at issue, not with taking action that enabled this material to be posted,” they wrote.
They found Lowery might have made these posts but evidence did not leave a clear and abiding conviction that she did.
They also found no harm in a conversation with a Go Daddy representative about the subject of the website.
Lowery told the representative, “They attempted to set up another judge of a different political party for murder.”
She said, “This is the guy that orchestrated it.”
Her statement related to the murder of Carl Silas in 2016.
Investigators questioned former judge Ron Duebbert about it, and the Judicial Inquiry Board removed him last year for not answering truthfully.
No one solved the murder.
“Judge Gleeson never attempted to set up another judge for a murder charge and never orchestrated any attempt to do so,” board members wrote.
They rejected discipline for Lowery’s statements to Go Daddy anyway, finding she made them one on one and they didn’t involve a court proceeding.
They found she didn’t specifically name Gleeson and she wouldn’t have expected that the call would become public later.
The only charge they found worthy of discipline didn’t come from Gleeson.
They recommended suspension for statements Lowery made to investigators in 2019, that she didn’t set up Fire the Liar or know its specifics.
“Given her activity in relation to that website, respondent’s answers were false and respondent knew they were false,” they wrote.
In mitigation, they found she expressed dismay at the Oct. 23 posts.
They found she told Duebbert to take everything down and she left the group.
They didn’t consider harm to Gleeson as an aggravating factor, stating the evidence did not connect that harm to Lowery’s misconduct.
“The sanction requested by the administrator, a suspension for two years and until further order of the court, is not commensurate with the misconduct that was proven here,” they wrote.
Lowery’s attorney Adrian Vuckovich of Chicago issued a statement saying they were grateful that “the panel recognized that Ms. Lowery did nothing and said nothing to hurt Judge Gleeson or damage the integrity of the judiciary.
“She is an honorable lawyer and respectful of judges and everyone else who participates in the legal system. On the last charge where Ms. Lowery was found to have not been truthful to ARDC, we think the panel got it wrong. Ms. Lowery was as honest as she can be and even tried to clarify the record so there was no misunderstanding. You also have to ask yourself how Ms. Lowery could have been untruthful to the ARDC about something she did not do, as the panel found. No decision has been made on whether to appeal."