Pritzker’s agriculture chief ousted over ‘rape’ email he now says he ‘simply did not read’ in its entirety

Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s agriculture chief has resigned over a controversial 2012 email from former top lobbyist Mike McClain over an alleged “rape in Champaign” and ghost payrollers.

The governor’s office says Pritzker asked for John Sullivan’s resignation because Sullivan was aware of the email and “did not handle it appropriately.” Proper handling, according to Pritzker’s office, would have included notifying the inspector general.

Sullivan, in a statement, said Pritzker’s general counsel notified him over the weekend that his name was referenced in the controversial email, which led him to review his personal emails from that time.

Sullivan said he discovered a forwarded copy of the email, but that he had not read it in its entirety until now, calling the decision an “unintentional oversight.”

“Had I read the email thoroughly, my reaction would have been disgust and I would have immediately notified proper authorities,” he said in a statement. “Bottom Line, I accept responsibility for what was truly an unintentional oversight and the subsequent inaction.”

A WBEZ report last week revealed McClain sent the email to two senior aides to then-Gov. Pat Quinn in a bid to win leniency for a worker in a disciplinary case. In it, McClain argued the man “has kept his mouth shut on Jones’ ghost workers, the rape in Champaign and other items.”

“He is loyal to the Administration,” McClain wrote.

McClain, a former top lobbyist and confidant to Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan, is under federal scrutiny as part of an ongoing investigation into ComEd’s lobbying practices in Illinois, a source told the Sun-Times. Neither Madigan or McClain have been charged with any wrongdoing.

Rich Hein / Sun-Times file

Pritzker spokeswoman Emily Bittner said Pritzker asked for Sullivan’s resignation over the weekend.

The administration reacted quickly to oust Sullivan in an effort to put distance between the administration and a potentially damaging pending federal investigation into McClain and others.

While applauding his work as agriculture chief, “the Governor holds all state employees to the highest ethical standards, and the Governor requested the Director’s resignation because he is disturbed that then-Senator Sullivan became aware of the existence of the July 31, 2012 email contemporaneously, and did not handle it appropriately, including not alerting the inspector general or other authorities,” Bittner said in a statement.

The governor’s office said its general counsel has shared all information given by Sullivan to the Office of the Executive Inspector General and offered to share the information with other investigating entities.

Sullivan resigned in an email, and Jeremy Flynn, his chief-of-staff, will take his place as acting director, the administration said.

Before being appointed director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture, Sullivan, a Democrat from Quincy, served as a state senator from 2003 until 2017. As director, Sullivan launched the state’s hemp industry, helped to turn around the Illinois State Fair and oversaw licensing of marijuana cultivators in the state.

In his statement, Sullivan said the summer of 2012 — when the email was sent — was a “stressful time” for him. He was in the middle of a reelection campaign and was undergoing cancer surgery in Maryland, he wrote in the statement.

“I was already aware of McClain’s efforts to keep me informed of his advocacy on behalf of [Forrest] Ashby, and I simply did not read the entire forwarded email,” Sullivan said in the statement.

The resignation is the biggest fallout thus far over the explosive email.

At a South Side event last week, Pritzker told reporters his administration had no other evidence of a “rape in Champaign” other than the McClain email. Asked how his administration would have handled such an email, Pritzker said he would have expected his staff to go directly to the state’s general counsel.

The email in question is about a state employee who worked as an administrator at the Illinois Department of Human Services facility in Downstate Rushville. It was sent to Quinn’s legislative affairs liaison and Quinn’s then chief of staff.

The employee also worked as a paid consultant to Pritzker’s gubernatorial campaign and most recently served as a consultant for correctional training revisions.

Law enforcement officials are now investigating whether the “rape” section of the email is linked to Scott Wayne Thompson, a sex offender who was released early from prison under Quinn, the Chicago Tribune reported over the weekend.

In March 2009, Thompson began serving a 2 1⁄2 year sentence at Big Muddy River Correctional Center after failing to register as a sex offender following a 1999 conviction for sexually abusing a child under the age of 13 in Piatt County, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records.

Thompson was granted a day of credit for each day served, as well as 180 days of “good time credit,” according to a senior official in Pritzker’s administration who has reviewed IDOC records. Thompson was released in May 2010.

About three months later, Thompson was arrested again and charged with sexually abusing another child in Champaign County, the official said.

He eventually was convicted and sentenced to 3 ½ years behind bars — but he didn’t spend that amount of time in prison.

Records show Thompson was released from prison in June 2012 and placed in the custody of the Department of Human Services, which operates a facility to detain and provide treatment to sexually violent people in Rushville. Thompson remains at that facility to this day.

The McClain email to Quinn’s administration was sent about one month after Thompson was released from prison.