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Tezak convicted of arson chargesAPC News ServiceBLOOMINGTON — Former Will County Coroner Robert Tezak was convicted Thursday on arson charges for a 1987 fire that gutted a Joliet building and destroyed evidence federal prosecutors had subpoenaed as part of an investigation into Will County corruption.The onetime Republican pow-erbroker showed no emotion when the downstate McLean County jury of eight women and four men announced its guilty verdict after four hours of deliberation.Dressed in a charcoal gray suit, Tezak, who was brought from a federal penitentiary to face the state arson charges, turned to his sister and waved as he was led from the courtroom. Tezak, who faces up to seven years on the charges, will be sentencedJune 21 in Joliet.Tezak already is serving a 12-year federal sentence for ordering the 1987 burning of a bowl-ding alley he owned in Crest Hill.Members of Tezak’s family refused to comment on the verdict as they left the McLean County Courthouse.The trial, which lasted four days, was moved to Bloomington after Tezak’s attorney asked for a change of venue, claiming his client wouldn’t receive a fair trialin Joliet.In the trial, Will County State Attorney James Glasgow, who personally tried the case, used Tezak’s own words when presenting his case to the jury.Tezak’s attorney, Douglas Roller, offered no witnesses in defense of his client, relying instead on his opening and closing statements and on pretrial motions to exclude evidence.An appeal is considered likely.Jurors on Wednesday heard the most damaging evidence against Tezak, which Roller had tried unsuccessfully to exclude.Federal court reporter Rosemary Scarpelli took the stand and read a statement made by Tezak in 1993 in which he admitted he agreed to pay a friend $7,000 to set fire to the building at 225-227 N. Chicago St.The run-down building, which Tezak bought for $85,000 in 1985, housed the Will County Private Industry Council and the Will County Center for Community Concerns. Tezak received $106,000 a year in rents he charged the two clients.In the statement, Tezak said he wanted to destroy the building to collect on the insurance and because he wanted to destroy some 20 boxes of records the Internal Revenue Service had subpoenaed from the Private Industry Council.Prosecutors said Tezak, the WTill County coroner from 1976 to 1988, used his clout in Republican circles to steer PIC contracts to political cronies and to rent the building to the two federally financed organizations.During the trial it was revealed several boxes of records federal authorities had subpoenaed were salvaged from the burned-out building. After the trial, Glasgow said federal authorities were reluctant to reveal what, if anything, was learned from the documents.“We’ve been relying on the federal government too long to take care of business in Will County,” Glasgow said.Glasgow said he had to “jump through hoops” to get information from federal authorities to proceed with the case.He said he couldn’t call federal agents to testify because they could not fully testify to their knowledge of the case due to current or prior federal investigations.“I know some things I couldn’t use in court due to federal privacy privileges,” Glasgow said.Glasgow said more information might be brought out at Tezak’s sentencing hearing concerning Tezak’s motivation and others who may have wanted the PIC records destroyed.In his closing statements, Glasgow pointed out that if any firefighters had been killed in the Joliet blaze, Tezak would have investigated their deaths as county coroner.On Tuesday, a Joliet firefighter testified he was 30 seconds shy of stepping on the roof of the building before it collapsed.Glasgow said he would seek the maximum seven-year term for Tezak and would ask that it be served after the completion of Tezak’s federal sentence.It was during his 1993 federal sentencing hearing that Tezak admitted ordering the torching of the PIC building. Tezak had planned to collect $1 million in insurance for the bowling alley fire.Federal prosecutors did not charge Tezak with the Joliet building arson in exchange for Tezak’s guilty plea to the bowling alley blaze, but that did not prevent Will County prosecutors from pursuing the case.In his closing statements, Roller attacked the confession and asked jurors to study the transcript closely and to ask themselves where it came from.Prior to the trial, Will County Circuit Court Judge Edwin Grabiec had ordered prosecutors not to divulge that Tezak’s statement came in a previous criminal trial.“They (the prosecutors) haven’t proven him guilty,” Roller said. “Don’t let them get away with inferences, suspicions and questions. Look at the statement closely.”Roller also asked jurors to consider why prosecutors never called Stephen Kezerle, the man whom Tezak admitted he hired to burn the PIC building.In his opening statements, Roller told jurors they couldn’t trust the testimony of Kezerle, who is a convicted child molester with a record for armed robbery.Kezerle was sentenced to 10 years in prison by federal authorities for starting the PIC fire and subsequently received a 44-year sentence on state sex charges.Glasgow never called Kezerle to the stand, effectively deflatingRoller’s chance to put holes in the state’s case.Prosecutors feared Roller would damage the state’s case by questioning Kezerle about his child molestation conviction.
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Hazel Crest Star
Hazel Crest, Illinois, US
Sun, May 19, 1996
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