Excerpts from the ChicagoTribune.com:
A Cook County judge will decide whether a former Oak Forest deputy fire chief schemed with his wife to embezzle about $352,000 from the Palos Heights Fire Protection District.
At a hearing Tuesday for Charles Sopko, Circuit Court Judge Kerry Kennedy set a trial date of July 20 at the county courthouse in Bridgeview. He is charged with felony theft of more than $100,000 in government property.
Sopko and his wife are accused of conspiring to steal the money over a 30-month period from 2009 through 2012 from the fire district, where she worked — paying herself overtime that she didn’t accrue and wasn’t eligible to receive. Prosecutors said she manipulated payroll and accounts payable systems to divert district funds into the couple’s bank account, with the stolen money going for food, clothing, mortgage payments, home repairs and travel.
The couple was arrested in December 2013. Charles Sopko, 48, was a deputy fire chief at the time but was later removed from that position. He still holds the rank of lieutenant in the fire department and has been on paid leave from that job since his arrest.
Michelle Sopko has insisted that her husband didn’t know about the stolen money, a claim that was echoed by her sister, who said Michelle handled all of the finances in the household.
Michelle was fired from the Palos Heights fire district in December 2012 after the fire chief discovered that she had signed the district treasurer’s name on a check without the treasurer’s knowledge or consent. The chief asked Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office to investigate financial irregularities, which resulted in the charges against the couple.
Incarcerated at the Decatur Correctional Center, Michelle Sopko is seeking a reduction of her sentence, and Kennedy is scheduled to hear the request July 22. She is eligible for day-for-day good time that would potentially cut her sentence in half, and her projected parole date is in February 2019, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.
