Retired Joliet police lieutenant charged with felonies, can apply again to veterans court

A Kendall County judge allowed a retired Joliet police lieutenant facing felony charges to apply to Veterans Treatment Court and not be denied based on his residency outside the county.

On Aug. 22, Judge Robert Pilmer ruled Dennis McWherter could apply again to Kendall County’s Veterans Treatment Court program, and not be excluded from admission because of his residency in Lake County. McWherter had been rejected as an applicant because he did not live in Kendall County.

“While there has been substantial proffer and argument with respect to Kendall County’s residency requirement, the court believes that there is not a sufficient basis for it to determine whether there is a rational basis for such a requirement, or if the requirement denies the defendant equal protection under the Illinois and U.S. constitutions,” Pilmer said in his ruling.

McWherter is a U.S. Army veteran who was charged with committing official misconduct, theft and drug-related offenses just days before he retired on Nov. 10, 2018, from the Joliet Police Department. The alleged offenses occurred at the department’s west substation in Kendall County.

The veterans court program aims to help military veterans or service members charged with crimes from continuing to commit them by giving them mental health treatment and intensive judicial supervision.

The successful completion of the program could result in a judge dismissing the charges against participants, terminating their sentence or otherwise discharging them from “any further proceedings against him or her in the original prosecution,” according to the Veterans and Servicemembers Court Treatment Act.

Prosecutors in Kendall County had objected to McWherter’s entry into the veterans court program because he does not reside in the county.

McWherter’s attorney, Jeff Tomczak, filed a motion that argued the county’s local rule on residency requirement is unconstitutional.

In Pilmer’s ruling, he said the requirement that an applicant be a resident of the county or a city partially in the county is not a local rule. He said it is part of the policies and procedures approved by the Administrative Office of the Illinois Courts before it grants certification for the county’s veterans court program.

Pilmer said no residency requirements appears in the eligibility standards outlined in the Veterans and Servicemembers Court Treatment Act.

Pilmer said current Illinois court standards do not show where admission to the veterans court program should be limited solely to residents of the county where such a program is located.