Funeral Wednesday for former longtime Kendall County State’s Attorney Dallas Ingemunson

A funeral service will be held Wednesday for former Kendall County State’s Attorney Dallas Ingemunson, who passed away recently at the age of 85.

Ingemunson, of Yorkville, served as Kendall County State’s Attorney from 1970 until his retirement in 1996. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Emergency 911 system in Kendall County and integral to the formation of the Fox Valley YMCA.

Visitation will be from 3 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Nelson Funeral Home, 1617 North Bridge Street, Yorkville. The funeral service takes place at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Nelson Funeral Home. Interment will be private at a later date.

Kendall County State’s Attorney Eric Weis started as an intern in 1995 in the Kendall County State’s Attorney’s Office when Ingemunson was the State’s Attorney. Weis was first elected to the office in 2006.

“He technically was the one that started my career as a prosecutor here in Kendall County,” Weis said. “I wasn’t an attorney yet. I was going to law school and I was working here at the same time.”

Weis said the experience laid the groundwork for what he is doing today.

“I wasn’t going to be a criminal prosecutor until I started working there,” he said. “That experience is what turned me into wanting to be a prosecutor and then ultimately to where I am today. In a roundabout way, I have Dallas to thank for that. That opportunity that he gave me to be an intern fueled my desire to be a criminal prosecutor, something that I may not have done if I hadn’t had that experience.”

Ingemunson played a prominent role in the political career of disgraced former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert. In April 2016, Hastert was sentenced to 15 months in prison in a hush-money case that centered on accusations that he sexually abused at least four students when he was a Yorkville High School wrestling coach.

In his own statement, Hastert admitted that he “mistreated” some of his YHS athletes and said he was “deeply ashamed.”

“I am sorry to those I hurt and misled,” Hastert said. “What I did was wrong and I regret it.”

When the judge asked whether he sexually abused one wrestler specifically, Hastert said yes, he did, according to news reports from the time.

Ingemunson, who was also long-time chairman of the Kendall County’s Republican Party, helped spearhead Hastert’s runs for the Illinois General Assembly in 1980 and Congress in 1986.

In a Kendall County Record story from June 2015, he expressed surprise at the allegations against Hastert.

“I’m shocked, is all I’ll say,” Ingemunson said.

Ingemunson was born in Sandwich on May 23, 1938. He graduated from Newark High School and received an electrical engineering degree from the University of Illinois.

He graduated from the DePaul Law School in 1965. He started his law career as an assistant State’s Attorney with Robert Ohse in Kendall County.

After the untimely death of Ohse, he was named State’s Attorney by the Kendall County Board the day his second son, Kirk, was born. He was subsequently elected six more times without ever being challenged.

After retiring in 1996, he joined the lobbying firm of Shea, Paige and Rogal in Springfield, Illinois. By then, his sons, Gregg and Boyd, had joined his private law practice.