“Integrity Is On The Ballot,” Fioretti Declares About State’s Attorney Campaign (Cook County, IL) – State’s Attorney candidate Bob Fioretti said watching his opponent make a dishonest statement during an interview on CBS 2 last week was the final straw. “My opponent has refused to debate, and in fact, until recently had rarely been seen by voters until the last ten days. I can only imagine that a person who railroads an innocent eleven-year-old Black kid would be ashamed to be seen in public. Voters will have to decide which is worse: Railroading an eleven year old kid, or calling him a ‘whole new breed of criminal” Fioretti said. “On CBS she lied. She said both candidates had agreed to appear at numerous ‘public forums’ but ‘Fioretti never showed up.’ Nothing could be further from the truth.”
Fioretti said in his decades long career as a civil rights attorney and his years as a Chicago Alderman elected twice from Chicago’s Historic Black 2nd Ward he has never used the term “liar” before to describe an adversary, either in the courtroom or in a campaign, even when he caught a witness committing perjury on the stand. “Eileen O’Neill Burke started her legal career as a prosecutor who lied in the courtroom about an innocent eleven-year-old Black kid,” Fioretti said. “Let me offer the voters a rule of thumb. If you’re motivated to lie about an innocent eleven-year-old and try to falsely send him to prison, you’ll lie about anything and everything.”
The only civil rights lawyer to ever run for Cook County State’s Attorney, Fioretti said that Burke’s lies about the eleven-year-old were protected by the immunity granted to prosecutors for what they say or do in a courtroom. “She had the factual details of a heinous murder in the police report. She had the false, coerced confession of a then ten-year-old, without a parent, attorney or juvenile justice representative present,” Fioretti said. “She chose to take the false confession and run with it, for no other reason than to get another notch on her belt. She knew she could lie in the courtroom with impunity.”
“In a campaign, the voters don’t give you immunity,” Fioretti said. “Eventually they catch up to your lies and deal out a punishment of their own.” Fioretti said his campaign has caught Burke exaggerating her judicial record, taking different political stands on different issues depending which audience she was speaking before, she and her campaign staff falsely signing in as representing the State’s Attorneys office, and claiming phony endorsements in the general election. “It all goes back to the eleven-year-old. She still can’t tell the truth about a case from thirty years ago,” he said. “Why would a voter believe a word she says”
The Fioretti campaign first challenged Burke to seventeen debates, one in each county board district. Then, in the form of a certified letter, the campaign asked for five debates. Several media outlets, including ABC 7 asked for a debate, according to a political reporter with the station. A group of southside churches formed together to ask for a debate. “In every instance when my opponent has had the opportunity to debate, exchange ideas, and answer for railroading a kid, she said no.,” Fioretti said.
“On April Fool’s Day of all days, Burke even admitted to lying about being a ‘law and order candidate,’ despite campaigning for months as the tough on crime candidate in order to attract Republican crossover votes,” Fioretti said. “Once that mission was accomplished, on the stage with Toni Preckwinkle, she cowered in fear and said ‘never mind about that law and order nonsense.’ I was just lying.” Now, in front of the Chicago Tribune, she’s back to being the ‘law and order’ candidate wanting to lock everyone up. Was she lying then, or is she lying now? Or both.”
Recently, the Greater Chicagoland Black Chamber caught Burke in yet another lie, The Chamber endorsed Burke in the March Democratic primary, and Fioretti in the Republican primary. In the general election, The Chamber endorsed Fioretti. Nevertheless, Burke dishonestly claims a Chamber endorsement in the general election on her campaign website. Over the weekend, the Chamber put out a statement, calling Burke’s deception “misleading and troubling,” and that it raises “serious concern regarding her ethics and her suitability” for the office of State’s Attorney.
Then came her lie on CBS 2. “Burke’s refusal to debate or answer questions about the wrongful conviction she engineered shows an arrogance toward voters, and the black community in particular, that permeates every statement she makes,” Fioretti said. “There is no such thing as a ‘small lie.’ Make no mistake, all the deceptions in this campaign lead right back to her big lie thirty years ago. It defines her character and, in the words of the great Reverend Jesse Jackson, is “disqualifying.”
“Integrity Is On The Ballot,” Fioretti Declares About State’s Attorney Campaign
