Fox Lake's Bad Lieutenant Tried To Have Village Administrator Killed

By Emma G. Gallegos in News on Nov 5, 2015 7:55PM

The details of the Fox Lake cop who authorities say killed himself to cover up years of embezzlement are growing increasingly strange. Now officials are saying that Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz tried to put a hit out on his own village administrator, because he was afraid she would find out he had his hand in the cookie jar.

Lake County Sheriff's Office spokesman Christopher Covelli said Thursday that Gliniewicz tried to arrange for a gang member "to put a hit" on a village administrator Anne Marrin, according to the Associated Press. Investigators discovered this through messages from Gliniewicz—and there were a lot of strange messages. There were deleted text messages from the lieutenant suggesting the possibility of planting cocaine on Marrin. Covelli said today that they did in fact find some packets of blow in Gliniewicz's desk, though it's not clear whether this was his own personal stash of nose candy or whether he just kept a few packets on hand to get back at his personal enemies.

On Wednesday Marrin said the recent revelations and texts from Gliniewicz confirm her suspicions that something was awry with the way the lieutenant was handling funds for the police explorer program: "When I heard that he was concerned that I was asking tough questions about the police explorer program, it only confirmed to me that asking the tough questions was the absolute right thing to do. In fact, getting at the truth about the administration of the explorer's program was the only thing that had to be done."

Authorities say Gliniewicz was laundering money from the program to pay for his mortgage, trips to Hawaii, gym membership, porn sites and personal loans. Authorities are now investigating whether his corruption was a family affair. (And they're noting that one time he was suspended for asking one of his underlings for sexual favors.)

What is clear is that the small-town cop who was hailed by his village as a hero in death has been recast as an anti-hero, perhaps of the sort who would be played by Nicolas Cage in the movie adaptation of his life.