Will County judge turns down motion to dismiss charge against Deputy Goewey

A judge on Monday denied a Will County deputy’s bid to dismiss disorderly conduct charges in a courtroom filled with his supporters.

Sheriff’s Deputy Edward Goewey faces the misdemeanor charge from a Dec. 3 incident in which he allegedly yelled at school officials and threatened to personally remove a child believed to have made a threat to shoot students at St. Mary Catholic School in Mokena.

Goewey was off-duty at the time and had three children at the elementary school.

At least 35 supporters showed up at the courthouse. Many of them went into the courtroom, and they joined a news conference held on Goewey’s behalf after the hearing.

“There are a lot interested parties in the court and in the hall,” Goewey’s attorney Bob Bodach said at the start of the hearing, turning toward people in the courtroom as he began to state his case.

But Judge Brian Barrett interrupted Bodach.

“Mr. Bodach, you can address me, not the people in the court,” Barrett said.

The case went to Barrett after another judge on Monday recused himself, noting that he appeared at an election event in which they both presented themselves as candidates for judge and Bodach made remarks about the Goewey case.

“I don’t think that sends a good message,” said Judge Art Smigielski, adding that he could remain impartial but believed some would question the integrity of the process given that the two men appeared on the same dais together as the case was discussed.

Bodach later said said the election event was an appearance before Bolingbrook police officers and their union, and that he had only mentioned that he was representing Goewey.

Bodach sought a dismissal of the disorderly conduct charge on the basis that prosecutors failed to state an offense.

He suggested Goewey was being prosecuted for identifying himself as a police officer as he “tapped his hip.”

“Can a police officer be charged with disorderly conduct for identifying himself as a police officer?” Bodach asked at the hearing.

Bodach noted the allegations included accusations of Goewey of yelling and refusing to leave the school before he tapped his hip, but said his conduct did not meet the definition of disorderly conduct.

“This innocuous tap of a hip and identification as a police officer somehow alarmed and disturbed a reasonable person,” Bodach said. “I suggest a tap on a hip and identification as a police officer does not rise to meet that definition.”

Bill Elward, an attorney with the Illinois Office of the State’s Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor brought in to handle the case as a special prosecutor by the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office, called Goewey “the only unreasonable person at the school that day.”

“The reasonable conclusion when he tapped his hip was not that he had a sciatica but that he had a gun,” Elward said.

Elward said Goewey threatened to take matters into his own hands and remove the student who had allegedly made the threat.

Barrett before ruling on the motion for dismissal repeated Elward’s sciatica reference as he went through a few possible conclusions that could have been made.

“Or, was he tapping his hip to show he was going to do what he we was going to do and no one can stop him?” Barrett asked. “That is for a jury to decide.”

At the news conference after the hearing, two parents who worked with Goewey as volunteers at St. Mary’s lauded him as someone who always provided help with security at events.

“When Ed is involved, safety is always the top priority,” Stacie Mroz said.

Brian Koch described one event in which school officials turned to Goewey to escort an irate parent out of a gymnasium at a sporting event.

Koch said before the hearing that he and others were there “to support Ed.”

“I think this whole situation is misconstrued and these charges are inappropriate,” Koch said.

Goewey said at the news conference that he and his wife, Heather, have removed their three children from St. Mary’s since the incident.

He has been on paid medical leave from the sheriff’s department since an incident on Sept. 30, 2020, in which Goewey was injured in what he described as “a life and death struggle on the ground” with a defendant subsequently charged with attempted murder.

Goewey said he suffered shoulder and wrist injuries, and surgery for his wrist is scheduled for May 13.