Accused of perjury, Chicago Police officer resigns

A Chicago police officer who allegedly lied in court about an attempted murder case has resigned as the police department recommended she and her partner be fired, in the wake of a Better Government Association and CBS2 report.

The Chicago Police Internal Affairs Division recently completed its investigation of Officers Allyson Bogdalek and Dominick Catinella and found they made a false report and recommended they both lose their jobs.

The police brass agreed, and the department was preparing to file “separation charges” with the Police Board, the administrative body that rules on serious disciplinary matters.

But Bogdalek resigned last week, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. Catinella remains on the force for the time being, Guglielmi said.

Neither Bogdalek nor Catinella could be reached for comment.

The fallout comes about four months after the BGA and CBS2 raised questions about the handling of the alleged misconduct by the police department and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s office.

The Internal Affairs Division had been investigating the officers for more than three years, and Alvarez ignored a recommendation from an underling to hit Bogdalek and Catinella with perjury-related charges.

By her own admission, Bogdalek was “untruthful” during a 2011 court hearing for Ranceallen Hankerson, who was charged with armed robbery and attempted murder for a violent liquor store stickup on the South Side a year earlier.

While under oath on the stand, she told the courtroom she hadn’t shown the liquor store owner – who was shot in the leg during the 2010 robbery – a photo spread with Hankerson’s picture prior to his arrest.

In reality, she had shown the owner Hankerson’s photo, but the victim initially failed to identify Hankerson as the assailant – a critical piece of information for Hankerson’s defense, according to court records and interviews.

In 2012, after a series of court hearings but before Hankerson’s trial, Bogdalek came clean about what happened after Hankerson’s defense attorney got a hold of Bogdalek’s squad-car video from the day Hankerson was arrested.

The video captured a cellphone conversation between her and a supervisor in which she mentioned showing lineup photos to the liquor store owner shortly after the stickup.

Hankerson’s criminal case was quickly dropped by Alvarez’s office because of Bogdalek’s conduct, according to interviews and court records.

Catinella was never questioned about the photo array during a Hankerson court hearing but he was “equally blameworthy” because he agreed with Bogdalek to “bury the negative photo array,” according to a state’s attorney memo obtained by the BGA.

This story was written and reported by the Better Government Association’s Andrew Schroedter and CBS2’s Pam Zekman. Schroedter can be reached at aschroedter@bettergov.org.