Judge Finds Former Village Manager’s Claims Baseless, Rules in Favor of Orland Park (Orland Park, IL) – In 2020, former Village Manager Joseph La Margo filed a groundless lawsuit against the Village of Orland Park, Mayor Keith Pekau, Trustee Bill Healy and the Keith Pekau for Mayor campaign. The claims included breach of contract, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In responding to La Margo’s complaint, the Village not only vehemently denied that La Margo had any basis to bring the claims, it filed a number of counterclaims against La Margo for the breach of his employment agreement, breach of his resignation agreement, breach of the fiduciary duty he owed to the Village, breach of loyalty he owed to the Village, and for the unlawful conversion of Village funds.

All of the relevant and undisputed facts were presented to the Circuit Court of Cook County and on June 12, 2023, the Honorable John J. Curry ruled that, as a matter of law, the Village of Orland Park, Mayor Pekau, Trustee Healy and the Mayor’s campaign prevailed on every single one of the claims brought by La Margo. The Court also ruled that the Village could pursue all of its counterclaims against La Margo. In doing so, and after reviewing all of the evidence presented, Judge Curry found the following:

that La Margo had authorized an outside law firm, Jones Day, to investigate the Mayor, without disclosing it to the Mayor, mere months before a trustee election in which the Mayor backed certain candidates, one of which was Bill Healy;
that the purpose of the engagement of Jones Day was to conduct a confidential investigation and the investigation concluded in a written report that no wrongdoing by the Mayor’s company could be found;
that La Margo was not authorized to engage the law firm, Jones Day, to perform work in excess of $20,000.00 in charges. That Jones Day charged more than that amount ($34,474.75) for its services and that La Margo violated the Village ordinance limiting his authority to authorize costs at a $20,000.00 ceiling;
that the Mayor learned about the investigation and its concluding report after La Margo tendered his resignation as Village Manager. As a consequence, the Mayor reacted strongly to the investigation and the manner in which La Margo engaged in it. The Mayor’s reaction was based on the instigation of the investigation, the secrecy of its conduct, its conclusion absolving him of wrongdoing, the use of Village funds to obtain the investigation, and La Margo’s approval of the expense of the investigation despite its cost in excess of his authority to spend without Board approval. La Margo provided no evidence that any of the foregoing was not a fact or occurrence;
that under the facts and circumstances, it is clear that Mayor Pekau and Trustee Healy wanted to garner public support for the cessation of “secret” investigations of Village officials, for the ending of public funding of the same, and to shed light on the conduct of their political adversaries, i.e., the instigation and promotion of the “secret investigation” against the Mayor and his party. There is no proof that the foregoing was not the case and no proof that the Mayor and Trustee Healy did not believe these concerns to be legitimate, and these objectives are reasonable under the circumstances;
that it is indisputable that the method of funding and conducting internal investigations at the Village is a proper matter of public concern and that the Mayor and Trustee Healy’s objective in making the statements, were reasonably legitimate;
that because any statements made by the Mayor and Trustee Healy were related to the conduct of La Margo and therefore in accordance with their official duties, they were privileged and could not form the basis of any claims by La Margo;
that La Margo failed to provide any proof of the possibility of any recoverable contract damages suffered by him;
that under the Village’s Director Payout Policy, a resigning employee who did not participate in the IMRF Early Retirement Program does not qualify for accrued sick time payout upon resignation and that in March 2019 resigning employee Karie Friling did not qualify for a payout of accrued sick time under that policy;
that La Margo authorized the accrued sick time payout to Friling despite that fact that it was contrary to the policy;
that any alleged statement that La Margo violated a Village ordinance with respect to the Jones Day investigation work and violated a Village policy with respect to authorizing sick time payout would not be defamatory because the statements were true; and
that Judge Curry is allowing all of the Village’s counterclaims to proceed to trial, specifically finding that “the Village has shown the existence of proof that La Margo both breached his fiduciary duties and converted funds.”

“I have been fighting this battle since the day I took office,” said Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau. “The previous board was still calling the shots and weaponizing La Margo in an attempt to tarnish my name and make it difficult to do my job and represent the people of Orland Park as they elected me to do.”

“Since this lawsuit has been filed, I have been publicly saying that it was groundless and wholly devoid of any merit whatsoever and that the Village and the other parties would prevail on all counts. It has taken some time to get to this point but that is exactly what has happened.”

“I am happy to once again be fully exonerated from accusations brought forth by a former Village Manager who was hired to thwart the will of the people,” explained Pekau. “It was an unfortunate waste of time and money that could have been avoided if former Village Manager La Margo had acted professionally instead of playing politics.”

“The Village Board exist for many reasons, one of them being checks and balances on spending to prevent abuse of taxpayer funds like this. This fabricated investigation was baseless and the $10,000 payment of taxpayer money to former Assistant Village Manager Karie Friling violated village policy and would have been stopped if the Village Board had known. We are delighted that the Court has acknowledged that we were doing our jobs as elected public officials for the Village of Orland Park in denouncing La Margo’s illegal actions and has now entered a judgment in our favor on all of his frivolous claims. In order to hold him accountable for the unauthorized actions he took as the former Village Manager and in the effort to recover the Village tax dollars that were spent on his illegal activities, the Village will now focus on its counterclaims against La Margo.”

“I am confident the Village will be as successful in its pursuit of the counterclaims as it was in defending against La Margo’s politically motivated and utterly unjustifiable claims.”

To view the judgement in its entirety, visit the Village website at orlandpark.org/documents.

Judge Finds Former Village Manager’s Claims Baseless, Rules in Favor of Orland Park

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