No trial on the horizon in fed case against ex-Lincoln-Way chief

After about three months, both parties in the federal fraud case against a former Lincoln-Way superintendent still have no answer as to whether it will ever go to trial.

It’s been more than four and a half years since Lawrence Wyllie, 84, was charged with misappropriating funds from Lincoln-Way School District 210, misappropriating bond proceeds and concealing the district’s true financial condition from the school board, bond purchasers and the public.

After Wyllie left in 2013, the school district went through a financial crisis that led to the closure of Lincoln-Way North High School, protests, a lawsuit, teacher cuts, resignations by several board members and other issues.

Since the last update in the federal case Jan. 4, both parties met again and reported once more that they are “not yet in a position to determine how this case will proceed,” according to an April 7 joint status report.

Both parties reported again that Wyllie’s attorneys told federal prosecutors that the former superintendent’s “serious and ongoing medical conditions remain the same.”

The next status hearing in the case was scheduled for July 11.

Joseph Fitzpatrick, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, declined to respond to questions on whether the office expects the case to go to trial this year or about Wyllie’s medical condition.

“Since this case is pending, we cannot comment beyond what’s available in the public court docket on PACER,” Fitzpatrick said.

Wyllie’s attorney Dan Webb did not respond to a call and messages about the case. Webb’s office was most recently involved in the prosecution of Jussie Smollett in Chicago.

Wyllie was the Lincoln-Way superintendent for 24 years and was called an “absolute genius in school financing” by former board President Ron Kokal. However, federal prosecutors alleged Wyllie caused the district to assume $7 million in additional debt and misused about $80,000 in district funds for his personal benefit.

In the 2017 indictment, prosecutors alleged Wyllie fraudulently used at least $50,000 in school district funds to build and operate Superdog, which provided “no benefit to the four high schools” of Lincoln-Way.

Under Wyllie, North and West high schools were built in the late 2000s to accommodate growing student enrollment that never materialized. The schools were built although enrollment projections were not matching reality as early as fiscal 2006.

Both schools were built as the result of a successful referendum to issue $225 million in bonds for their construction.

The district’s decision to cut teachers in 2016 received criticism from Tim Conway, the teacher union’s president at the time.

“It is symbolic, it represents the mismanagement of public dollars, it represents a way of conducting business that should have never been allowed, it represents students losing their teachers, it represents an increase in class size that will diminish the educational opportunities for students,” Conway said in a statement.

Board members in 2016 acknowledged that a “proper system of checks and balances was not in place,” blamed Wyllie for taking “unauthorized action” and admitted the true financial condition of the district was “masked by improper accounting.”