State Board Investigates Vanecko Trial Judge

By Chuck Sudo in News on Apr 18, 2013 7:00PM

The Sun-Times reports the Illinois Judiciary Inquiry Board has opened an investigation into McHenry County Judge Maureen P. McIntyre, who was appointed to preside over the trial of Richard “R.J.” Vanecko. Vanecko, a nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley, was indicted last December on involuntary manslaughter charges in the 2004 death of David Koschman.

McIntyre divorced her husband, Raymond X. Henehan, in a decree filed in Boone County in 2006. Henehan, a disbarred attorney, owes the Internal Revenue Service and former clients $750,000 in judgments. But Henehan and McIntyre still live together seven years later and McIntyre received most of the couple’s assets in the divorce, leading some of Henehan’s creditors to believe the divorce was one of convenience.

McIntyre was selected to preside over the Vanecko trial because special prosecutor Dan Webb argued for a judge with no ties to the Daley machine. The Sun-Times reported in February that Henehan’s parents were county employees. His father worked for the County Highway Department. His mother, Dorothy Henehan, was an employee of the County Assessor’s office who ran unsuccessfully for state representative in Glencoe in 1974. McIntyre still lists Henehan as one of three people who could create conflicts of interest as a judge in her economic interest statements.

The Sun-Times also reported Henehan’s connections to the Cook County Democratic machine go back to Vanecko’s grandfather, Richard J. Daley, and has penned editorials implying “an appearance of impropriety” with McIntyre’s divorce and suggested she recuse herself from the trial because of her ex-husband’s decades-old patronage connections.

But the judiciary board is more interested in the Henehan-McIntyre divorce and any improprieties that may arise from it. One of the judicial board’s investigators spoke with David Matthiesen, the son of the late Earl Matthiesen, who is owed the largest judgment against Henehan, after his divorce from McIntyre, to determine a timeline.