State Rep Carol Ammons and Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons Indicted On Federal Wire Fraud Charges –

Springfield and Champaign, Ill (ECWd) –

Illinois State Representative Carol Ammons and her husband, Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons have both been indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on Wire Fraud Charges among others, including unlawful use of campaign funds, and receiving “kickbacks” from payments made out of campaign funds and state grant funds.

From the Indictment:

• 8 Counts of Wire Fraud
• 1 Count of False Statements
• 1 Count of Conspiracy to Obstruct Justice
• 1 Count of Obstruction of Justice

The Indictment alleges:

• As a state representative, AMMONS assisted local organizations in obtaining state grants. Under Illinois law, it is a conflict of interest for a person in a position of authority to benefit financially from a decision she could make in her official capacity, including through indirect benefits to family members or businesses with which the person is closely associated.
• For state fiscal year 2020, AMMONS, in her role as a state representative, caused a change in an appropriation for a state grant from the Urbana Neighborhood Connections Center, which served children from historically underserved neighborhoods, to Hood Vote Neighborhood Transformation (“Hood Vote”), which was focused on reentry and corrections reform. The total state grant to Hood Vote was approximately $605,431.
• AMMONS’ s daughter was associated with Hood Vote and eventually served as its Program Director. On or about April 2, 2021, AMMONS’s daughter was paid approximately $3,326 in salary by Hood Vote out of the state grant appropriation. Thereafter, the State of Illinois informed AMMONS and Hood Vote that it was an impermissible conflict of interest for AMMONS’ s daughter to be paid out of the state grant funds. Consequently, Hood Vote discontinued paying AMMONS’s daughter a salary.
• CAROL AMMONS, defendant herein, knowingly devised a scheme to defraud the State of Illinois, its taxpayers, and donors and contributors to her campaign and to obtain money and property by means of materially false pretenses, promises, and representations, including by omissions and the concealment of material information.
• It was a purpose and objective of the scheme that AMMONS enriched herself by converting contributions and donations to her campaign to her personal use. It was a further purpose and objective of the scheme that she concealed from ISBE and law enforcement authorities that she was engaging in such conversion of campaign funds for her personal benefit.
• It was also a purpose and objective of the scheme that AMMONS assisted local organizations in obtaining state grants that would benefit her and her daughter financially in violation of Illinois conflict of interest rules. It was a further purpose and objective of the scheme that she concealed from the public, state authorities, and law enforcement authorities that she and her daughter were benefitting financially from state grants that she had a role in obtaining for local organizations.
• It was a further part of the scheme that, to avoid detection of the payments to herself, AMMONS caused checks to be issued to an individual in excess of the amount for services actually rendered. AMMONS then required the individual to provide cash kickbacks to her, sometimes referred to as “gifts.”
• As part of the scheme, AMMONS paid her daughter approximately $600 per month from her Friends of Carol Ammons campaign fund, totaling approximately $15,585, not in proportion with services actually rendered.
• As part of the scheme, AMMONS caused state grant funds to be paid to herself and her daughter. AMMONS did not assist Hood Vote in renewing its state grant for state fiscal year 2021 after she learned that it could not pay her daughter out of the state grant. As part of the scheme, AMMONS assisted Bridgewater Sullivan Community Life Center (“Bridgewater”) in obtaining state grants in state fiscal year 2021 totaling approximately $612,000, recommended individuals for employment with Bridgewater, and assisted Bridgewater in drafting her daughter’s employment contract with Bridgewater. To avoid detection of the payments to herself, AMMONS required an individual to provide cash kickbacks to AMMONS, sometimes referred to as “gifts,” which were paid out of Bridgewater’s state grant.
• As part of the scheme, AMMONS assisted the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center (“IMC”), where she previously worked, with obtaining over $1 million in state grants in 2021 and 2022, including a $700,000 member initiative funded by the federal American Rescue Plan Act. From July to October of 2022, while working fulltime as the Program Director for Bridgewater and as an Intermittent Public Service Representative with the Illinois Secretary of State, AMMONS’ s daughter was paid approximately $9,990 by IMC as a digital marketing coordinator, a position which was funded by the state grant that AMMONS facilitated.
• As a result of the scheme, AMMONS and her daughter received financial benefits in excess of $100,000.

This is apparently tied directly to the indictment of the daughter of Carol and Aaron Ammons a few months ago (here). The Ammons are not strangers to the court systems Carol Ammons was alleged in shoplifting, which was later dropped, and Aaron Ammons received a pardon for his crimes in the last days of Governor Quinn’s term of office, courtesy of his wife Carol, which eventually enabled him to become elected as Champaign County Clerk.