Small Town Cops Committing Unspeakable Corruption

The closest reference I can give you is that little, tiny, insightful information you know, without question, about your significant other.

That information where you know, beyond the shadow of any doubt, when they are lying or have something up their sleeve.

You know this because you know them. You have studied them, experienced them, lived them.

So, when I tell you, that I know there is evil in those eyes, corruption and the deepest treachery of human deceit, I don’t feel the need to try to convince you, as I saw them first hand when he threatened to have me killed.

July 2016

We both stood there in the report writing area, exchanging small talk about the shift that morning. He had called be into the police department, over the radio. As I was driving my squad in, my partner had called me on my cell and said, “hey, I just got sent home. Filenko wants me to go home and then come back tonight. He is going to cover you while I’m gone.” We both agreed that this was highly strange, as this never happened and the Chief of Police rarely left his office if he was there.

This was several weeks after we had filed the federal lawsuit against him and the department and it was Summer, hot and we were all under pressure due to what was going on inside of the department.

Ten of us had filed a federal lawsuit in June of 2016, after we observed ourselves being recorded on our department body cameras in area and moments that we had never thought could or would happen.

I saw footage of myself urinating, defecating, texting personal and intimate dialogue to the woman I was with at the time, and more. All of us did.

Over the following several weeks, things had gotten pretty tense at the police department, including Chief George Filenko locking me out of the network and telling his command staff and the mayor that he was going to have the FBI investigate me after I notified the mayor of the body camera footage. He would come in and slam doors daily, swear all the time when he spoke to anyone and walk past you without even responding if you asked him a duty related question. At the very minimum, it was the definition of hostile work environment.

All of this was just a few weeks prior to me now driving into the police department at his ordering me to meet with him. It was daily and it was tense at that department.

The small talk we had was the complete opposite of the prior two years that we had together. Two years of me spending hours with him in his office while other officers worked the road and took calls that should have been mine.

We would talk about the department, the officers in the department, the future of the department and him… we would always wind up with the majority of the time spent on talking about him.

But that day, I stood in the doorway of the report writing room, purposely in view of the surveillance camera, and said nothing but one word responses to Filenko as he made statements that required me to acknowledge him.

“It’s hot today, so make sure you stay hydrated,” Filenko ordered me.

“I am going to be in the office with the radio on, so notify CenCom if you need me,” Filenko advised.

Both to which I simply responded, “yes, sir.”

He kept talking and I kept listening. He said nothing relevant to the day or important enough for me to hold fast to, until he laid his hand on my right shoulder.

A few days prior, a town close to ours had an ambush scenario against their police officers.

Officers from that town were called to a violent domestic to a specific apartment door in a building and when they responded in force, the neighboring door, who had called 911 and requested police respond, opened fire.

Thankfully no one was killed or injured.

Filenko debriefed me on the incident as if he was still on Lake County Major Crimes Task Force and had something to do with it. As usual, it was his way to impress and pontificate that he was more keen to all that others were not. He continued about the constant violence against the police that had plagued our society during that time and shook his head.

But it was at the end of the debriefing where he placed his left hand on my right shoulder, leaned in towards me, looked right in my eyes and said, “be careful out there… because it’s just a matter of time before someone from our department is shot and killed.”

I had had massive personal suspicion up until that point, but in that moment was fully confident that George Filenko, the Chief of Police of the Round Lake Park Police Department and former head of Lake County Major Crimes Task Force, was fully capably of the destruction of another human being, and why I am convicted that he covered up, if not had some part in orchestrating the “suicide” of Fox Lake Police Lieutenant Charles GI Joseph Gliniewicz.

May 14th, 2016

You still think I was fired for a text message of a heroine over dose dead man in a closet or a woman in her bed who bled out from a ruptured upper GI? I would too if I didn’t know the day in, day out of my relationship with Filenko up until that point.

Let me sum up my role with this: I went into the Round Lake Park Police Department in December of 2013 and promised myself to be the Golden Boy. After fighting the corruption of my last two departments, I promised myself that I would be a company man with this one, and I sure as hell was.

Ask any one of my co-workers and they will either verify what I said, or they will tell you I was a self-righteous ass who was allowed to get and do what he wanted.

And I was.

I will gladly show you my training certificates, department status as OIC (officer in charge) and trainer responsibilities, newspaper article acknowledgments and more just to show that Izzo was given what he wanted because he produced and was Filenko’s Golden Boy.

Every week, I spent at least one hour per shift with Filenko in his office. We spoke about everything, including up coming media projects that would put him in the limelight. I will get to his contempt for my limelight, but in those moments, every conversation was about the legend of George Filenko and I knew that to keep the king happy, you had to play the audience.

So, again, as I said before, I know this man. I know the hatred and jealousy he has in his heart for cops. I know the contempt he has for someone being held in higher regard than him. And I know of the incessant, compulsive need he has to be first, referenced and right. All you have to do is call the police department and ask to interview Filenko. I can guarantee you, without hesitation, that he will spend as much time as you will give him talking about how glorious his legacy is.

Vanity is the very definition of George Filenko.

But Gliniewicz still bothers me today.

I will clarify with upmost importance that I was not, in any way, involved in the investigation of his suicide. The closest I was, was in physical proximity as the investigation was conducted in our department.

We were ordered by Filenko to repeat nothing we saw or heard to anyone, lest we face immediate termination and criminal prosecution.

But I will tell you how the halls still filled with his screaming at the investigating officers, regardless they were all in the front of the building and behind closed doors.

Two months of “investigation” into Gliniewicz, I now believe was really two months of story writing orchestration by Filenko, with his detectives being screen writers that each were given a scene to write. None of this falls on them, as I truly believe that his uncanny ability to manipulate others had these officers truly thinking they were uncovering a monster in Lt. Gliniewicz.

Small case facts that have always bothered me in relation to George Filenko and Round Lake Park:

Gliniewicz’s desk drawer was observed to have cocaine in it. I am not aware of the exact amount or the container in which it was held, but it was alleged that he was in possession of this narcotic in order to place it into the vehicle of a Fox Lake official to frame her, as she was investigating him. Personally, I have never known a cop to keep cocaine in their desk at work, so this was always very suspect to me.

The village of Round Lake Park Police Department is a trailer, literally. The doors can be forced in with the slightest of shoulder strikes. The evidence room was “broken into” approximately 18 months prior to my hiring. I was advised by officers who were there during that time, that Filenko was in a tirade over missing narcotics and interviewed every officer himself. One officer told me that he asked Filenko why the Illinois State Police were not conducting an investigation, as this fell under the realm of their requirements. Filenko told him, “what happens in these four walls, stays in these four walls.”

During my time at the Round Lake Park Police Department, we had “Locker number 5”. This was a throw away locker. In other words, when you were too lazy to enter your drugs into evidence properly that night, you stashed it in locker 5 and did it the next day after you got sleep. A limited number of us had access to it and after a while we were all disciplined over utilizing it. What had shocked me then, but does not surprise me now, was the fact that Filenko knew about the locker, had allowed the practice of using it go on for years, but disciplined us for using it around the time of Gliniewicz’s investigation

Filenko’s associates have always concerned me as well too. Sans the officer he just hired that is suspected of having ties to the Maniac Latin Disciples street gang, I worked close with one of his police commanders, someone who had worked under Filenko for nearly 20 years and came with him from another department.

This commander ALWAYS found the drugs we were looking for. It blew my mind how he always knew where to look. This commander was the one who taught me how to use locker number 5, told me how we got our “no knock warrants” from the judge and subsequently began disciplining me left and right after I went after Filenko’s credibility. Again, suspicious and unable to prove any connections, but once again, I refer to the concept of you knowing your significant other better than I ever will… I know these men and I know what they are capable of.

But with all of this information beginning to pile back then, I was solidified in having concern as to why Charles GI Joseph Gliniewicz had cocaine in his desk drawer, allegedly to frame one of their village officials and Filenko, of all people, finds out every single dirty thing about Gleniewicz that makes the man look bad?

It will be 3 years on September 1st and I am personally convinced that Gliniewicz was not a suicide in the way that Filenko convinced the world to believe. He stood at that podium press conference with such an amazing straight face and told the world of the elaborate prank that Gliniewicz had pulled.

I recall asking Filenko, “how in the hell could one man shoot himself in the vest, feel that overwhelming and incapacitating pain, and still, knowing how excruciating it was and was going to be again, how could he drum up the balls to do it again? No human being would be able to do it!”

Filenko looked at me with a straight face and said, “we found out that he had a higher pain tolerance than most people. We believe he was masochistic, as you can see from all the tattoo work he had done, and that he liked pain. I also requested they test his system for steroid use.”

How this man was able to say this with a straight face is beyond me. But then again, I was also at the funeral for Gliniewicz and wondered how the mayor of Fox

Lake, could talk so much about his close friend and not have a single crack in his voice while doing so. Again, my personal belief, a lot of key players in the Gliniewicz investigation were connected. There was something amongst the “higher ups” who run Lake County Illinois.

How did I come to this belief, you ask? A December 2017 phone call that did not surprise me one bit.

The man, who I can’t identify yet, advised me that he was retired emergency services in Lake County, had a long and close friendship with Filenko, and had proof that Filenko had ties to the drug trafficking in the Lake County area.

Now, again, this is what I was told and have absolutely no proof. This is neither accusation or slander, but I personally believe it to be accurate and true.

The caller, stated that Filenko was dying to get into police work and was not happy being a dispatcher. He stated that Filenko could not get hired on anywhere and befriended several brass members of numerous police departments and fire departments in the area.

The caller stated that this was during the 80’s and Filenko had a contact named George that lived in the area who was a cocaine dealer. The caller stated that he was a cocaine user and that Filenko would drive the caller to the dealer’s house and he would do coke. He stated he never saw Filenko use, however he is in possession of a VHS video tape of his wedding in the late 80’s where Filenko supplied an “8 ball” for the groomsmen and they all were at the head table doing lines.

Again, this is what was told to me and advised to me, “Dominick, how do you think he went from dispatcher to police chief and head of major crimes? He has dirt on some very powerful people.”

I believe this caller, now his name, and will be highly suspect should something happen to him.

There is much more to this as well. The very day I was fired, I received phone calls from people who advised me of bank accounts that held a quarter of a million dollars in Gliniewicz’s personal accounts. Where as Filenko told the world he killed himself over less than 10k, a very well respected and known resource advised me that 2 of the 4 bank statements he saw had far more funds in it than a mere $10,000.

Put it together in your own mind. Drug operation in Lake County Illinois, possibly involving the police, possibly being covered by the man who ran the highest investigating police entity at that time, Lake County Major Crimes Commander George Filenko.

My thoughts? Lake County Illinois has a drug ring that involves cops, but not just any cops… the top brass and village officials. And you have no idea how many well known news reporters I have spoken to feel the same.

Missing drugs, a police chief who allegedly spies on his officers, a locker for floating drugs, a police Lt who kept drugs at his desk at work, officers with gang ties, officers who advised me of their fear of Filenko using what he had on them to destroy them… its all a start.

There is far more and I would have to write a book. But the public needs to start asking themselves the questions that make sense. Why else would Melissa Calusinski still be sitting in prison when all evidence proves that she is innocent beyond question, in a manor that most of law enforcement agrees with? Because the investigating officer in her case was George Filenko and the State’s Attorney who prosecuted her is also the SA who was in the pipeline for every single investigation that Filenko was responsible for.

Dig deeper too. Ask yourself why Dr Thomas Rudd, the Lake County Coroner during the Gliniewicz investigation, was arrested and charged on perjury after he went to run for re-elction. Have you heard of any public official every being charged criminally after his petitioned signatures to get on the ballot were challenged? Or could this be the fact that Rudd, questioned Filenko’s reasoning for hunting for cop killers when he stated publicly that he could not rule out a suicide?

Did you also know that Rudd challenged Filenko once before when he went on the record stating that his professional medical expert opinion was that Melissa Calusinski was innocent of murder to the toddler Filenko accused and charged her of?

You still think I was fired for texting two photographs to a gung-ho police supporting friend? Or is it possible that I just did not follow the good old boys club and Filenko saw me as the biggest threat to his way of operating. “Izzo can’t be controlled” are his own words. And a man he cannot control, is someone who can defeat him. At least I was told that the mayoral candidate in 2017 was shocked to hear that I was fired three weeks after he had a private meeting with Filenko and advised him that upon his election win and Filenko’s retirement, I would be a front candidate for Chief of Police for Round Lake Park.

I called the FBI, the Attorney General, the State Police and Lake County… none would help.

Gliniewicz did not kill himself and my cop’s gut just won’t let that go. And I wasn’t fired for a text message… I was fired for exposing the truth.