SPRINGFIELD — A state ethics panel slapped a former top aide to Gov. Pat Quinn with a $1,000 fine for doing campaign work for the governor while on state time.
The Executive Ethics Commission posted its sanction this week against Carolyn Brown Hodge, a former deputy chief of staff in Quinn’s office who resigned after the Chicago Sun-Times brought her potential ethics violations to light in 2009.
Between January and June 2009, Hodge “on multiple occasions … used her state-issued computer to send a series of emails of a political nature, either from her state email account or from her private email account,” the ethics panel noted.
Hodge’s correspondences occurred during the state work day and were sent to a top operative in the Quinn campaign and to an official in the Illinois Democratic County Chairmen’s Association.
Through the contacts, she “intentionally misappropriated state property or resources by engaging in prohibited political activity for the benefit of a campaign for elective office,” the ethics commission stated.
Executive Inspector General Ricardo Meza had sought a fine of up to $4,000. But the ethics panel settled on $1,000, noting that she appeared to be “genuinely remorseful, to have owned up to her actions and to have cooperated in the investigation.”
Hodge now lobbies the governor’s office, General Assembly and other state agencies at the Capitol on behalf of 20 clients, state records show.
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