After withdrawing from the Democratic primary, Thomas Rudd formed a committee to look into his running as an independent. He subsequently gathered more than 14,000 signatures to file as an independent. (Photo by Karie Angell Luc/for Chronicle Media)

As a court hearing on his independent candidacy for office looms Thursday, incumbent Lake County Coroner Dr. Thomas Rudd is insisting he will stand for re-election through whatever means are allowed him.

Rudd, who was first elected coroner in 2012, withdrew from the Democratic primary in December after admitting to mistakenly signing several nominating petition that he had not circulated.

“I withdrew because I made a clerical mistake,” Rudd said in a phone interview. “I withdrew before the hearing, and I announced it in a press release.”

Those petitions had been challenged by Republican opponents.

After withdrawing from the Democratic primary, Rudd formed a committee to look into his running as an independent. He subsequently gathered more than 14,000 signatures to file as an independent.

Rudd’s Democratic primary rival, former Lake County deputy coroner Michael Donnenwirth, who won the Democratic primary after Rudd withdrew, filed an objection to Rudd’s independent candidacy.

Besides Donnenwirth, who previously ran unsuccessfully for the Lake County Board in 2008 as a Republican, Republican and dentist Howard Cooper will also be on the November general election ballot.

Rudd says the latest objection to his candidacy is being prosecuted with support from the same Lake County Republicans who objected to his primary filing.

Donnenwirth contends that Rudd is ineligible to run as an independent due to his having filed candidacy papers identifying him as a Democrat before withdrawing from the coroner’s race.

State law is clear in prohibiting candidates from running in a general election race after losing in the primary for that election. But it is unclear whether or not filing candidacy papers and then withdrawing before the primary election also disqualifies a person from running as an independent.

Rudd’s lawyers argued that “the act of withdrawing one’s candidacy necessarily voids and nullifies the filed nominating petition and supersedes any statement of affiliation made therein.”

“It was written for people who ran in the primary and lost,” Rudd said. “It doesn’t say anything about if you withdrew before the primary.”

Donnenwirth’s attorneys are contending that while Rudd withdrew his candidacy in the Democratic primary, he did not formally withdraw certified statements identifying himself as a Democrat in the 2016 election.

“What they are saying,” Rudd said, is, “I am a Democrat for a full year.”

On July 13, the three-person Lake County Electoral Board unanimously sided with Donnenwirth and blocked Rudd’s name from being printed on the November ballot.

Rudd’s lawyers filed an appeal of the electoral board’s decision. A hearing is scheduled before Lake County Circuit Court Judge Diane Winter at 9 a.m. Thursday in Waukegan.

Rudd said he has the full support of Lake County Democratic chairman Terry Link and other top Democrats. Link is quoted in prior media accounts saying, “Of course I’m going to support him. The two candidates running now are both Republicans.”

Rudd is being represented by Democratic election lawyer Michael Kasper, with the backing of State Democratic Central Committeeman Michael Madigan.

While Rudd says of his appeal, “I fully expect to win,” he said that should his appeals to run as an independent fail, he will run a write in campaign.

“I plan on it.”

No stranger to controversy

Rudd, who has been a doctor for more than 30 years, specializes in the fields of Pathology and Nuclear Medicine.

Rudd has stressed that he is the first board certified pathologist to serve as Lake County Coroner, and that his training and extensive experience has allowed him to oversee the coroner’s office with a professional diligence previously lacking.

He also insists that his willingness to question other official’s judgment in high profile cases has made him a target of both Democrats and Republicans.

Rudd was the first official to raise the possibility that once-popular Fox Lake police Lt. Joseph Gliniewicz’s shooting death was a suicide rather than a murder, which ultimately proved to be the case.

Gliniewicz’s body was found Sept. 1 after he’d radioed dispatchers that he was chasing three suspects on foot.

Around Sept. 9 or 10, Rudd said, “I spoke to the press after rumor got out that (Gliniewicz) had been shot in the head or legs.”

Rudd said he wanted to correct that misunderstanding, and told the media Gliniewicz had been struck by “a single fatal shot in the torso,” without elaborating.

That, he said, infuriated certain police officials, who accused him of discussing an ongoing investigation.

But the real anger, Rudd said, stemmed from his overruling a cause-of-death finding in a case that resulted in a 28-year old child care worker being convicted of murder.

Rudd changed the cause of death of a 16-month-old boy at a child-care facility in 2009 from “homicide” to “undetermined” after reviewing X-rays that showed the child had suffered serious head trauma prior to an incident believed to have caused his death.

Child-care worker Melissa Calusinski, who allegedly threw down the 16-month old boy, was convicted of murder and sentenced to 31 years in prison.

However, the injuries shown in X-rays Rudd reviewed had happened prior to Calusinski being employed at the daycare center.

The forensic pathologist who performed the original autopsy on the deceased boy later provided an affidavit acknowledging that he missed medical indications that the boy “had suffered an old injury that predated Jan. 14, 2009,” the day the boy died.

That evidence was never considered at Calusinski’s trial.

“That’s where the anger started,” Rudd said. “I embarrassed (Lake County prosecutor Mike) Nerheim.”

Calusinski’s new attorney, noted defense lawyer Kathleen Zellner, has asked Lake County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Shanes to throw out Calusinski’s conviction and hold an evidentiary hearing on a new trial.

Judge Shanes is expected to rule on Zellner’s motion on Sept. 15. Meanwhile Calusinski remains in the Logan Correctional Center.