A suspended Harvey police officer is among at least 8,171 Cook County property owners who wrongly received tax breaks over the past decade on homes they didn’t live in — costing more than $24 million, a burden other taxpayers had to make up.
Lemuel Askew — a Harvey cop for 30 years who’s awaiting trial on charges he bought stolen tools and other goods — is among the owners of 34,804 homes who got property-tax breaks they weren’t eligible for, records examined by the Chicago Sun-Times show.
Askew got homeowner exemptions on seven homes, the records show. Under Illinois law, those tax breaks — which knocks $7,000 off a home’s assessed value — are only for a single, owner-occupied residence.
Ninety-five percent of the property owners who got tax breaks they weren’t entitled to got the homeowner exemption, according to records from Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios’s office. That’s the most common type of tax break for owner-occupied homes in Illinois. It’s also one that the assessor’s office automatically renews every year.
About 5 percent improperly got property-tax breaks intended to cut real estate taxes for senior citizens, veterans, disabled people and longtime occupants. All of these tax breaks require property owners to file paperwork every year to show they still qualify.
Many of the homes that improperly received these tax breaks meant for people who live in their homes are instead rented out, the Sun-Times found — in some cases to tenants whose rent was covered by taxpayers through Section 8 federal housing vouchers for the poor.
Askew has been slapped with liens for taxes, penalties and interest totaling $122,413 on seven homes on which he received homestead exemptions for as long as seven years.
Others shaved as much as $6,100 off their yearly tax bill for a single property by getting what Berrios’ office calls “erroneous exemptions.”
“Do we ever prosecute people for this? In most cases, no,” says Tim Monahan, Berrios’ deputy assessor for erroneous exemptions.
The exceptions usually are for property owners who got tax exemptions on multiple homes, Monahan says.
“When you get into the multiples, we do turn it over to the state’s attorney,” he says. “In most cases where it’s a multiple, they’re actively trying to game the system.”
The assessor’s office says there are currently 130 properties under investigation regarding tax exemptions.
Monahan oversees an 11-person unit that Berrios created in 2013 to crack down on property owners who cheat the system by collecting tax breaks on multiple homes. Altogether, the assessor’s office has sought to recover $35.9 million — including taxes, penalties and interest — from property owners. So far, it has collected $19.3 million.
All of the taxes recovered are turned over to local governments, primarily school districts. Berrios uses the penalties to pay for his erroneous exemptions unit.
For Askew and others, Berrios has placed liens on their properties, trying to ensure he can collect the back taxes, penalties and interest when a property is sold. Berrios has filed 610 liens in an effort to collect $4.1 million in taxes, penalties and interest.
Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios filed a $23,550 lien in June on this home on West 137th Place in Riverdale to recover taxes, penalties and interest from Robert E. Hall. According to the assessor’s office, Hall wrongly received a homeowner exemption on the property between 2009 and 2014 even though he wasn’t living there. | Cook County assessor’s office
Five months ago, Berrios filed liens totaling $111,986 on seven south suburban homes owned by Robert E. Hall, a management consultant from Lincoln Park. Records show Hall received 48 illegal homeowner’s exemptions between 2009 and 2014 on homes he leases to tenants in Dolton, Hazel Crest and Riverdale.
“I had no clue this happened,” Hall says. “I paid my taxes. Then, last winter, I got these letters.”
Berrios’ office wrote to him, saying Hall needed to repay the tax breaks he’d received from homeowner’s exemptions, plus penalties and interest.
Hall says he couldn’t afford to pay. So the assessor put a lien on each of the seven homes.
Hall says he never submitted an application to the assessor’s office to obtain the tax exemptions on the seven homes, which he bought for $989,000 in 2008 from Mack Industries, a real estate company in Tinley Park. According to Hall, the assessor’s office had approved the homeowner exemptions before he bought the properties and continued granting them for years.
James McClelland, Mack Industries’ owner, says he didn’t know anything about the exemptions the assessor’s office granted on the homes he sold to Hall. County records show Mack received tax bills for 146 properties this year, including 56 properties that got a homeowner exemption.
The assessor’s office wouldn’t talk about the properties owned by Hall or Mack Industries.
Cook County homeowners used to have to apply every year for the homeowner’s exemption — which 75 percent of the county’s residential homeowners get. They had to mail back a card they’d get from the assessor’s office.
But some people who didn’t do that complained that they never got the card.
Berrios’ predecessor, James Houlihan, eliminated the annual application, saying that would cut the expense associated with his staff having to process the applications for the county’s 1.3 million residential properties.
Berrios has no plans to reinstate the yearly application process for homestead exemptions “because it would not be even close to cost-efficient,” agency spokesman Thomas Shaer says. “It would not prevent fraud among those who knowingly receive the [exemption] when not eligible for it; they would simply sign the postcard.”
Among those who’ve wrongly gotten the exemptions, according to county records:
• George Sebu, who says he never applied for the homeowner’s exemption on the seven homes he leases to Section 8 tenants in Markham. But the assessor “kept giving it to me,” he says. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Sebu has been hit with tax liens by Berrios for a total of $91,206 on the seven homes. He says he was able to repay the taxes on eight other homes that had also received exemptions he wasn’t entitled to.
“I’ve paid about $35,000 so far,” says Sebu, who lives in Tinley Park. “I can’t afford to pay them any more, so I let them put the liens on them. They want $14,000, $15,000 a property. The property isn’t worth it. Maybe it’s not worth it to pay.”
• Johnny “Goo” Herndon, a reputed member of the Gangster Disciples who’s in jail awaiting trial on charges that he ran a heroin ring in West Garfield Park. Herndon owes nearly $35,638 in back taxes for homeowner exemptions and other tax breaks he’s gotten on eight homes in Chicago and Markham between 2008 and 2014, records show.
According to federal prosecutors, Herndon used profits from the heroin ring to buy and rehabilitate homes and apartment buildings that he has often leased to Section 8 voucher tenants. Though he’s in jail, Herndon is collecting $34,000 a year in rent from the Chicago Housing Authority for four properties. None of those received erroneous exemptions.
Berrios hasn’t placed liens against any of Herndon’s properties. Herndon’s wife is challenging the move to collect the back taxes, penalties and interest for 50 exemptions. Herndon’s lawyer declined to comment.
• Vincent Lawless, a construction company owner from Lemont. He owns six residential properties on Chicago’s Southwest Side and in Schaumburg that had liens placed against them by Berrios earlier this year to collect $52,097 in back taxes, penalties and interest from 41 exemptions.
Lawless says he has paid off the liens, including an apartment building with a Section 8 tenant in West Lawn.
“That was quite a hurt there,” Lawless says. “It’s a lot of money. They went back seven years. I thought they went too far. I was upset with Berrios.
“I owned these properties for 20 years,” he says. “They were on the properties when we bought them, and I guess they never took them off. The tax bills were going to the bank, and I never saw them.”
• Lindell Wallace, who lives in Plano. He was hit with liens in March as Berrios moved to collect $118,986 in taxes, penalties and interest on 11 homes in Calumet City, Chicago, Harvey, Markham, Riverdale and Sauk Village with a total of 82 erroneous exemptions.
Wallace has two Section 8 tenants. It’s unclear, though, whether any of them live in these homes because the Cook County Housing Authority won’t provide the addresses of subsidized tenants, only the names of the landlords. Wallace couldn’t be reached.
• Verity Investments LLC/Luxe Property Managers, which owed $703,357 in taxes, penalties and interest for 707 improper exemptions on 141 properties in Chicago and the suburbs, according to assessor’s records. The assessor’s office says the company has paid what it owed. Luxe president Brad Suster couldn’t be reached.
• And Askew, the Harvey cop, who has owned the seven homes in the south suburb for several years. They were among the assets he declared when he filed for bankruptcy in 2012. Two years later, Askew was indicted for possession of stolen power tools and an iPod, along with items for his dog. He has been suspended from the police department while awaiting trial.
Berrios placed liens against Askew’s homes in October 2015 seeking $122,411 for 44 erroneous exemptions. Askew’s attorney declined to comment.
Contributing: Jacqueline Campbell, Data Reporting Lab editor Darnell Little
