Melodie Gliniewicz Charged: Widow Of Disgraced Cop Claims She Was Victim Of His ‘Secret Actions’
From the archive: published Mar 11, 2016, 10 years ago. Details may have changed since.
For seven years, Lt. Joe Gliniewicz and his wife Melodie dipped into charitable funds to pay for vacations, trips to Starbucks, and dinners out. The disgraced cop killed himself last year to cover up this theft, and now authorities believe his widow played a role in the scheme.
Melodie Gliniewicz, 51, is already facing a slew of charges related to the embezzlement scheme from the Fox Lake Explorers chapter — a youth group that introduced kids to law enforcement and military careers — and now she faces another: conspiracy, the Lake County News Sun reported.
Prosecutors explained that the new charge is simply another way to charge Melodie Gliniewicz for the same crime, won’t heap more jail time on a potential sentence, and doesn’t change the bond agreement set when she was first charged in January.
In the worst-case scenario, Gliniewicz could spend seven years in prison for allegedly helping her husband siphon between $10,000 and $100,000 from the program between 2008 and 2014, CBS News reported.
Melodie claims innocence in the face of these charges. Her attorneys said that the widow was not Lt. Gliniewicz’s accomplice, but a “victim of her husband’s secret actions.”
What's the newest charge against Melodie Gliniewicz? https://t.co/dI0f2E4wyX pic.twitter.com/4eAjCLh8Tc
— Lake County News-Sun (@newssun) March 9, 2016
Trial Date Set for Melodie Gliniewicz https://t.co/l3p2nDgXkF pic.twitter.com/hUSkgaLRNw
— Crystal Lake Patch (@CLakePatch) February 26, 2016
In January, Melodie Gliniewicz was charged with six felony counts of money laundering and disbursing charitable funds without authority for personal benefit. These charges were tied to accusations that more than $10,000 was misspent on personal expenses rather than the Explorer’s chapter, which is now defunct. Melodie has pleaded not guilty to these charges.
Gliniewicz now faces a conspiracy charge for allegedly helping her husband, who ran the program starting in 1987, steal thousands of dollars. According to NBC Chicago, Gliniewicz held a “fiduciary role as an adult advisor with the Fox Lake Police Explorer Post.”
The conspiracy charge implies more than one person’s involvement to commit a crime.
Police also seized five of Melodie’s bank accounts and two of her credit card accounts; these accounts are believed to still contain Explorer funds.
Lt. Gliniewicz, 52, was found fatally shot on September 1 last year, and his death immediately became a national headline, CNN reported. He called dispatchers that day to report he was chasing three men near an abandoned cement factory. Police arrived to find him dead close to marshlands. Believing his death a homicide, a massive manhunt began, but the three suspects were never found.
Widow of Police Lt. Joe Gliniewicz indicted, #FoxLake County Sheriff's Office says https://t.co/ijLfky5aPi pic.twitter.com/JuiN0K7H9p
— CNN (@CNN) January 27, 2016
Investigators later pieced together a much different story. After they uncovered pages of texts that Gliniewicz deleted from his cell phone, police discerned that the cop staged his death to look like a homicide, fearing that his years of embezzlement would be uncovered.
His ruse didn’t work, and the country soon learned that Gliniewicz didn’t die bravely in the line of duty but was, in fact, a criminal. He used the embezzled funds to pay for a family vacation in Hawaii, trips to the theater, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, and more than 400 dinners in restaurants. Gliniewicz also spent the money on adult websites.
In the weeks that followed the truth about Gliniewicz’s suicide, investigators also discovered a scheme to marry his mistress to his son, D.J. His son is in the army and the marriage would’ve boosted his marriage benefits to the tune of thousands per year, the Inquisitr previously reported. He was also accused post-mortem of plotting to have a village official killed.
His widow, Melodie Gliniewicz, now faces either probation or seven years in prison. She was indicted by a grand jury on the new charge on Wednesday. She’ll be arraigned in April. Prosecutors are apparently preparing for a trial, although it’s not clear when that will take place; adding or revising charges is not uncommon practice ahead of a trial.
Gliniewicz’s lawyers, from the firm Kelleher & Buckley, said, “Melodie is completely innocent of any and all such charges and looks forward to proving her innocence to the world.”