BENSENVILLE SUSPENDS ACCUSED SERGEANT

The Bensenville Board of Fire and Police Commissioners decided Thursday
night to suspend without pay a police sergeant who is accused of stealing
$6,000 during drug and gambling arrests, concealing drug trafficking at a
bar owned by his family and evading taxes.

Village administrators, armed with allegations from an internal
investigation of the Police Department, want to fire Sgt. Joseph DeAnda, 48.
The first step is the suspension without pay.

The board set Feb. 24 as the date to begin hearings on firing DeAnda.

Theodore Poulos, a former assistant U.S. attorney now in private practice,
has led a probe of the beleaguered department since February 1998, shortly
after federal agents raided Club Latino, a Bensenville bar owned by DeAnda's
father.

Agents confiscated cocaine and marijuana and arrested four people.

Poulos is alleging in formal complaints to the Police Commission that DeAnda
knew of drug trafficking at Club Latino and concealed it while completing
the bar's liquor license application in 1995 through 1998.

The special investigator also contends that DeAnda, a 16-year veteran of the
department, stole money seized in arrests in 1992, 1994 and 1995, then tried
to replace the cash shortly after Poulos began his investigation.

The allegations against DeAnda include a claim that he failed to report on
his tax returns $10,010 he earned from an unlicensed and unregistered
security firm that he and several other officers ran from the department
from 1985 to 1998.

DeAnda's attorney, Richard Reimer, a former Bensenville police officer,
contends that the move to fire DeAnda is Village President John Geils'
effort to exert undue control over the department.

Reimer also alleges that Poulos is ignoring corruption elsewhere in the
department in a purge of officers deemed undesirable by village
administrators.

The board's hearing comes amid a turbulent 24 months for law enforcement in
the community.

The Club Latino raid prompted police administrators to re-assign DeAnda, who
had been chief of detectives, and hire Poulos to undertake the
investigation.

Within a few days of the raid, Police Chief Walter Hitchuk resigned, citing
his wife's health. Poulos later raised allegations that Hitchuk was aware of
drug dealing at the club and shielded it. Hitchuk has been unavailable for
comment.

The investigation also yielded allegations that Bensenville Police Officer
William Wassman destroyed cocaine before a case was concluded and falsely
stated in at least 20 cases that other officers had witnessed him destroying
illegal narcotics.

Wassman was indicted in February on charges of obstruction of justice and
official misconduct and resigned in September. A criminal case is pending in
DuPage County Circuit Court.

The same month Wassman resigned, Patrol Officer Susan Hawkins filed a sexual
discrimination lawsuit against the village, alleging that four men were
promoted to sergeant over her--even though two of them were rated lower than
she on the eligibility list.

Also in September, acting Police Chief Carl Dobbs resigned, a month early,
reportedly over the handling of Hawkins' efforts to achieve a sergeant's
post.

Hawkins settled her lawsuit Sept. 29, after the village agreed to promote
her instead of Officer Peter Spizzirri, who had been slated to become
sergeant.

The three members of the Fire and Police Commission then resigned in
protest. In November Spizzirri filed a federal lawsuit claiming the
promotion agreement violates the law.