Posted on 11/13/2024 9:43:31 AM PST by Red Badger
Samantha Steele, a Democratic official on Illinois’s Cook County Board of Review, was arrested Sunday for drunk driving and crashing into another car, Chicago Police records said.
Police allegedly discovered the 45-year-old commissioner prone on the sidewalk near two cars that had “extensive” damage after arriving at the scene, the Chicago Sun Times reported. She confessed to driving into the other vehicle, police said.
Officers found an open bottle of red wine on the passenger side of Steele’s car, according to the records. “I observed her eyes were bloodshot and glassy,” a police officer wrote, according to the outlet. “I also detected a strong odor of alcoholic beverage coming from her breath as she spoke.”
Steele allegedly refused to carry out field sobriety exams or answer questions related to her consumption of alcohol. “I want my lawyer, and I am not talking to you,” she said, according to law enforcement.
While being taken into custody, she “repeatedly said, ‘Is your penis that small'” to an officer, according to records, the Chicago Sun Times reported. Steele was reportedly hospitalized after saying she suffered pain from head injuries. She is expected to appear in court on Dec. 27, police said.
Steele was elected to the Board of Review, which has authority to review property tax appeals, back in 2022. The commissioner has over 15 years of experience in property valuation and is a certified Level III Assessor/Appraiser, according to the Board of Review’s website. She “previously served as a County Assessor in the state of Indiana, where she was the first Democrat elected county-wide in more than 30 years,” the website noted.
Steele defended employing a former Indiana politician who pleaded guilty in federal court earlier in 2024, the Chicago Sun Times reported. Frank Calabrese, a former aide to Steele, alleged in a whistleblower suit at the federal level that he was fired for cooperating with a county Independent Inspector General investigation into her and her chief of staff and punished for seeking legal advice over a property-tax appeal by the Chicago Bears, WBEZ Chicago reported in July. Steele refused to comment on Calabrese’s allegations in a statement to the outlet beyond saying his suit contained “falsehoods.”
Appears our little lady was at it again last November. Got a judge to dismiss the whole thing but notice the slurred speech, the denials, the lack of cooperation. Here’s somebody that definitely needs to be voted out of office.
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