CHICAGO – A federal judge ruled Wednesday that 14 Joliet police officers conducted a proper search of a woman’s home in a 2003 raid, though the woman accused them of playing with her sex toys, erotic pictures and underwear.

However, the judge determined, police secured a second search warrant for her home without probable cause.

The woman, 42-year-old Dorothy Campbell, was seeking $75,000 on each of the two counts in her lawsuit alleging civil rights violations. Judge James Moran said he would award her “nowhere even close to the kind of money that was quoted to me” for the half of the lawsuit her attorney, John Schrock of Joliet, succeeded in proving to him.

Still, Campbell considered it a victory.

“I feel that justice was served a little bit when it came to them coming in on the second warrant, because it was not a true warrant,” she said after Moran handed down his decision Wednesday.

Campbell’s lawsuit accused the Joliet officers of conducting an unreasonable search and seizure at her home, then on Raymond Street, in February 2003. She also sought damages from two of the officers, alleging that they obtained a second search warrant under false pretenses in order to recover a videotape of one of their colleagues reportedly apologizing for the initial raid.

Police served the first search warrant with the intent to locate marijuana they believed her son Brandon, then 18, was selling. Police found no marijuana, and did not arrest the teen, but did locate a variety of vibrators, dildos, “very personal pictures” of Dorothy Campbell and her ex-husband, and her underwear, Campbell said. Police paraded around her house with these items, humiliating her, and left them strewn about the house for her children to see, she said. The officers have denied this.

Moran ruled that the officers conducted a “run-of-the-mill” search of Campbell’s house and did nothing improper. But he also determined that police secured the second search warrant, which gave them authority to enter Campbell’s house and seize a videotape, without probable cause.

The complaint for the second search warrant, signed by officer Darrell Gavin, states that during the raid Gavin saw a videotape in the house that showed a girl “in various stages of undress and engaged in sexual acts” and that this was “evidence of child pornography.”

Gavin testified that he did not write the complaint and only saw the teen lift her shirt and expose her breasts on the tape. He said he did not consider this child pornography.

Gavin said he had reservations about signing the complaint, but was told to do so by his supervisor, Lt. James Stewart. Stewart told him to sign the warrant because he was familiar with the teen and knew she was a minor, Gavin said.

Daniel Rippy, a former assistant state’s attorney who wrote the complaint for the search warrant, said he was supplied this information by police. Rippy testified on Wednesday that he was reluctant to bring the complaint to a judge and at first denied the request. He acquiesced, he said, after he was called by Stewart and talked into doing so.

Rippy said he knew nothing at the time of Sgt. Rex Provenzale’s reported videotaped apology – which the judge instead called an “explanation.” Rippy said he would have denied the request if he had been aware of the taped statement.

Moran, in deciding for Campbell on the second count, said: “Why does Lt. Stewart push this? Because he’s the one who pushed it.”

“There was never any probable cause for the second search warrant,” Moran said.

Moran also said the tape shows Provenzale giving Dorothy Campbell an “explanation” and not an “apology.” Provenzale went to the house after Campbell repeatedly called the police department to vehemently complain of the raid and the condition of her home.

Moran gave Schrock and Assistant City Attorneys Greg Smith and John Wise two weeks to provide him with examples of previous cases to determine Campbell’s monetary award.

While this sum will be much less than the $150,000 she sought, Campbell was satisfied.

“I’m OK with this,” she said. “I don’t want this to happen to someone else.”