Two charges of unlawful use of charitable funds was upheld against Melodie Gliniewicz, as prosecutor claim she, and her late husband, Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Gliniewicz, committed malfeasance with the department’s Explorer Post 300 bank account funds.

Lake County Circuit Court Judge James Booras ruled that prosecutors in the case against Melodie Gliniewicz met the burden of proof for the charges of unlawful use of charitable funds, based on evidence presented to the county grand jury, during a Jan. 9 hearing.

The validity of the remaining misdemeanor and felony charges will be aired Jan. 30, when another hearing compels the state to show cause to defense attorneys regarding the manner of crime committed.

Gliniewicz, 52, is charged with nine counts relating to the alleged misuse of funds in the non-profit Fox Lake Explorer Post 300’s bank accounts, in collusion with her late husband, Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Gliniewicz. Her attorney, Donald Morrison, had filed a motion to dismiss all the charges stemming from the infringement of constitutional rights by alluding to her crimes in nebulous terms.

The original motion stated, in part: “was not a signatory on any Fox Lake Explorer 300 accounts and had absolutely no control over funds of the explorer program.” Morrison stated that the two charges of unlawful use of funds were false allegations, and came with the assertion that Lt. Gliniewicz was the only person in control of the bank accounts from 2009 through March 2015.

Assistant State’s Attorney Scott Turk indicated that his office’s investigators determined otherwise, and read their grand jury testimony into the record. In March 2014, Melodie Gliniewicz allegedly deposited $7,000, from the Explorers’ holdings into her own account, and 14 days later, allegedly deposited a $7,000 check, from her account into a different Explorers bank account.

A nascent concern has now arisen from the amount and transaction, during a period where defense attorneys state she did not have a fiduciary, or financial, capacity, and was merely a civilian adviser. If the contention is true, a question of why the bank permitted the transactions was not discussed.

“At this time, that information is not being released as it is still part of an active litigation,” said Cynthia Vargas, the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office’s communications manager. “The dates of the bank transactions are part of the case, and are not being made available with the court hearing still active.”

The Lake County Major Crimes Task Force, which investigated the Gliniewicz incident, deposited approximately 50,000 pages of material on a 2-terabyte hard drive, in addition to other materials, with the Village of Fox Lake on Dec. 18, 2015. The disarray required tedious cataloging for dissemination, after review and redaction. It purportedly contained the bank documents, although they were unavailable as part of an ongoing investigation.

However, a Freedom of Information Act request to Fox Lake for complete bank records of the Fox Lake Explorer Post 300, supplied by the FBI, generated the following response: “The Village has not identified any financial records related to the Fox Lake Explorers program.  The Fox Lake Explorers program operates as a separate and independent 501(c), and the village has not been able to identify any funds or documents within its records system for this program.”

A Nov. 4 press conference, then-task force commander George Filenko revealed that Lt. Gliniewicz had committed suicide Sept. 1, carefully “masked as a homicide” in order to derail an inventory of village assets by the village’s administrator, Anne Marrin, where the discovery of malfeasance with the post explorer bank accounts would come to light.

Material, from the conference, stated he had in engaged in “embezzlement,” and “laundering” of money, and only named one facility, the U.S. Bank. Recovered text and email messages, from the computer and phone of Lt. Gliniewicz, implied that “Individual #1” and “Individual #2” were the main contacts, and some discourses concerned monetary aspects and their discovery of malfeasance. One of the individuals was allegedly Melodie Gliniewicz.

The messages, prior to March 2015, seemingly substantiate the claims by defense attorneys in corroborating the time-frame. The March 2015 date going forward was when the officer changed bank accounts, and made his widow a signee on them. Melodie Gliniewicz, of Antioch, has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

The examination of the specific bank records, with open and defunct accounts, was undertaken and completed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, being presented as part of an audio/visual victimology report, prior to the press conference.

The bulk of the nine indictments facing Melodie Gliniewicz surround three counts of Disbursing Charitable Funds Without Authority and for Personal Benefit (Class 2 Felonies), one count of Disbursing Charitable Funds without Authority and for Personal Benefit (Class 3 Felony), one count of Money Laundering (Class 2 Felony), and one count of Money Laundering (Class 3 Felony).

In open court, Turk also stated that the Gliniewicz couple were using the explorer post accounts for personal expenses, and loans, for a three-year duration ending in 2015, in keeping with investigators’ claims to the grand jury. The defense has maintained that Lt. Gliniewicz was the sole person with the financial authorization to handle the accounts.

Booras’ ruling follows the second motion to dismiss all the charges by defense attorneys. The original presiding judge, Victoria Rossetti, denied the first dismissal attempt, and then recused herself due to a potential conflict of interest.

Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, was indicted in Jan. 2016, by the Lake County Grand Jury, with additional charges in April, all stemming from “tens of thousands” of dollars spent for personal or business use, from the bank accounts of the disbanded Fox Lake Explorer Post 300 accounts.