EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. - East St. Louis leaders say they were stunned by a federal prosecutor's allegation in court that Kelvin Ellis operated a prostitution ring out of his City Hall office.
Ellis is the city's director of regulatory affairs. He was placed on leave from his job the day he was arrested, is still being paid 42 thousand dollars a year.
Mayor Carl Officer said yesterday he was "completely flabbergasted" to hear about the allegation.
A federal prosecutor made the allegation during a hearing on whether Ellis should remain in federal custody until trial on charges of tax evasion and obstructing justice.
But the prostie charges seem the least of Ellis' problems.
Back file, January 22, 2005: EAST ST. LOUIS - Federal agents Friday arrested Police Chief Ronald Matthews, his secretary and a former auxiliary officer on obstruction charges, and arrested city official Kelvin Ellis in connection with seeking to have a federal witness slain.
All were charged Thursday under suppressed federal indictments released Friday, and all pleaded not guilty in arraignment hearings.
Federal agents faked a photograph depicting the body of an unidentified female witness in an election fraud investigation involving Ellis. Prosecutors contend Ellis, director of the city's Department of Regulatory Affairs, wanted the witness dead, according to the indictment. When the photograph was shown to Ellis by an unidentified person cooperating with the investigation, Ellis responded: "Our problem's over."
Ellis, 55, of East St. Louis, was charged with four counts of obstruction of justice in connection with seeking to have the witness discredited and later killed. Ellis also is charged with three counts of attempting to evade and defeat the assessment of income tax. He is accused of filing a false tax return for 2001, and failing to file tax returns for 2002 and 2003, and using third-party checks, money orders and cash to pay bills to conceal his income.
Each obstruction charge carries up to 20 years in prison; each tax charge up to five years.
Matthews, 55, of East St. Louis, former auxiliary police officer Ayoub S. "Dave" Qattoum, 40, of Belleville, and Matthews' secretary, Janerra Carson-Slaughter, 28, of East St. Louis, are accused of obstructing an investigation into the possession by Qattoum, a convicted felon, of a .38-caliber revolver seized from him Aug. 7 by East St. Louis Police.
Matthews is accused of having a police report falsified to state the gun was missing and possibly stolen, lying to a grand jury, and arranging the return of the gun to Qattoum. Carson-Slaughter is accused of accepting $1,500 from Qattoum for the gun's return. Qattoum is accused of lying to federal agents.
All three are charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice. Matthews also is charged with perjury. Qattoum also is charged with making a false statement and with two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm.
The obstruction charges carry up to 20 years in prison; possession charges up to 10 years; and the conspiracy, perjury and false statement charges up to 5 years.
All four were arrested Friday by members of the Metro East Public Corruption Task Force.
At 10:57 a.m., more than 30 law enforcement officers from the FBI, Illinois State Police, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigative Division and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, walked into City Hall. They included
Agents frisked Carson-Slaughter in the hallway, handcuffed her and walked her to a waiting federal car. Other agents headed to Matthews' office. He was allowed to remove his duty belt containing his gun before he was handcuffed and walked downstairs to a waiting federal car.
For the next two hours, agents stood at the back, side and front doors of City Hall. Employees and residents filled the lobby and hung over the second and third floor bannisters. Shortly before 1 p.m., an IRS agent emerged from Ellis' office with a handful of computer discs. Agents then left the building.
Ellis' arrest in St. Louis and Qattoum's arrest were announced later Friday by U.S. Attorney Ronald Tenpas during a press conference at his office in Fairview Heights.
"Public office is a public trust," Tenpas said. "The citizens are entitled to public officials who respect and uphold the rules of the law. Where officials fail in this duty or where they seek to threaten or frighten those who tell of their failures, we will prosecute vigorously to the full extent the law allows."
According to the indictment against Ellis, Ellis learned Oct. 5 that a woman, identified in the indictment only as "Jane Doe" was giving to federal investigators information about Ellis' involvement in election fraud and other potential crimes.
The next day, Ellis began a series of meetings with an unidentified person and sought to set up Doe in a drug crime to discredit her, according to the indictment. The person cooperated with federal authorities.
"Do you want me to go to her and plant that crack on her?" the person asked during a meeting Nov. 19, according to the indictment.
"I want her (expletive) taken out, however we have to do it," Ellis said, according to the indictment.
On Nov. 22, the person asked Ellis if he wanted the woman "out of the picture."
"We can dispose of her, I mean dispose of her, I ain't talking about with the crack, if that's what you want done, I mean if that's gonna make the problem go away," the person told Ellis, according to the indictment.
"All we've got to do is discredit her, dispose of her, she needs to be handled, she needs to be handled," Ellis said, according to the indictment. "I don't want you to do nothing that's gonna get you in trouble. I don't want you to do nothing that's gonna get me in trouble."
On Nov. 23, federal authorities, with Doe's help, staged her violent slaying and photographed her "body." The next day, the person cooperating with authorities met with Ellis, showed him the photograph and told him Doe was at the bottom of Horseshoe Lake.
"If that was the problem, the problem's over," the person told Ellis.
"Our problem's over," Ellis said, according to the indictment.
On Friday, Interim City Manager Alvin Parks said Economic Director Willard Mitchom will take over Ellis' post. Assistant Police Chief Marion Hubbard will take over the duties of chief, Park said.
Mayor Carl Officer wants the Illinois Sate Police to take over the city's Police Department for an interim period.
"We're concerned about honesty and integrity," Officer said. "Just because the Police Department goes to the Illinois State Police, it doesn't mean that we can't find leadership inside of the department."
Officer said he was told by Parks the police union took a vote of no confidence of the leadership in the Police Department.
"We're in a cesspool down here," Officer said.
Officer called the allegations against Matthews, Carson-Slaughter, Qattoum, and Ellis shocking and said his prayers are with their families.
The four were arraigned Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Clifford Proud. Ellis was convicted in 1990 of using his influence as a top aide to Officer, who was mayor then, to win a nursing home construction subcontract for a business in which he had a financial interest.
Ellis, dressed in a black sport coat and white shirt, entered the courtroom Friday looking haggard. Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith asked Proud to keep him in jail pending his separate trials on the obstruction and tax evasion cases, which are tentatively scheduled for 9 a.m. April 4 and 9 a.m. April 5.
Proud scheduled Ellis' detention hearing for 2:30 p.m. Thursday. In the meantime, Ellis will remain in the custody of U.S. marshals.
After marshals led Ellis away, they brought in Matthews, Carson-Slaughter and Qattoum.
Matthews, handcuffed and still in his police chief's uniform, looked alert and defiant when his turn came to stand before Proud.
Because each of the three indicated they were considering hiring their own attorneys, federal public defender Dan Cronin stepped aside to allow Proud to enter pleas of not guilty for them.
Proud allowed Matthews and Carson-Slaughter to be released on $20,000 unsecured bond pending their tentative trial dates of 8 a.m. March 22.
As for Qattoum, who faces deportation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Proud scheduled a detention hearing for 10 a.m. Jan. 28. Qattoum, who emigrated to the United States from Jordan, remains in the custody of the marshals service.
