Petty Corruption On Display As Chicago Cop Uses Bogus ‘Girlfriend Stole My Car’ Excuse To Get Out Of 44 Traffic Tickets

Some more great reporting based on public records has emerged from ProPublica. This one shows how willing cops are to exploit the system they’re supposed to be protecting and upholding.

Now former officer Jeffrey Kriv certainly isn’t one of Chicago’s worst cops. There’s simply too much competition, given the PD’s long history of internal corruption dating back to Prohibition and continuing through to events far more recent, like the uncovering of its secret “black site” operation cops used to separate detainees from their rights and their representation.

Kriv, however, is definitely a product of the PD’s hands-off approach to discipline. As ProPublica reports, Officer Kriv certainly had his share of problems, most of which went unaddressed by his employer.

Most officers face only a handful of complaints over the course of their careers. But at least 92 misconduct complaints were filed against Kriv, according to city and police disciplinary records compiled and analyzed by the Chicago Tribune and ProPublica. Even more exceptional: About 28% of complaints against Kriv were found to have merit, compared with about 4% of complaints against all Chicago police officers going back decades.

Kriv sent threatening letters to other city employees after his illegally parked car was towed by the Streets and Sanitation Department. In another incident, Kriv left the scene of an auto fire and went to a strip club. He’s been investigated 26 times by the PD for misconduct, including falsifying records, issuing bogus tickets, and making false arrests.

Yet he remained a Chicago police officer up until he was charged with perjury and forgery for his actions relating to the headline-making ticket-dodging he engaged in for years. Officer Kriv’s personal vehicle was ticketed 51 times from 2015 to 2022 after being captured violating traffic laws by the city’s many red light/traffic cameras.

He only paid two of them. A majority he avoided, utilizing the same story over and over again to dodge being held responsible for his actions.

Kriv contested tickets using that defense before at least 23 different judges. Sometimes he went before the same judge with the same story, but those appearances were typically years apart.

At a hearing in 2018, he tried to get out of a speeding ticket issued in a school zone.

“My girlfriend and I got in an argument that morning,” he told the judge. “We broke up. She took my fob and she took my car and I do have a police report.”

“I didn’t get it back until later that night around 9 o’clock. And I did have her arrested about a week later. We went to her workplace, but here’s a copy of the police report.”

The judge reviewed the report and dismissed the ticket.

At no point did he ever make it clear to the traffic court judges he faced that he, himself, was a police officer and obviously had access to the paperwork needed to craft alternative realities involving stolen cars and thieving girlfriends.

This would be extremely problematic if it only happened a couple of times. But it happened pretty much every time.

Last year, the city’s Office of Inspector General received a tip to look at Kriv — not for his work in uniform, but for a potentially fraudulent defense of a parking ticket he had received, records show.

The OIG followed that tip and concluded that Kriv had provided false testimony and fraudulent documentation related to parking and traffic violations since 2009, according to prosecutors. Since 2013, he had contested 44 tickets by saying his girlfriend had stolen his car. All 44 had been dismissed.

People who actually face any sort of consequences for their actions don’t do this sort of thing. I mean, they may do it once or twice but they don’t engage in serial deception unless they’re sure they’ll never see anything more than a wrist slap for it.

Kriv’s history of misconduct (and corresponding lack of serious punishment) encouraged him to defraud traffic courts just because he could. And he wasn’t even creative enough to come up with multiple excuses. He went back to the same “girlfriend” well repeatedly, even when facing judges he had faced before.

And Kriv may be facing criminal charges, but until those are resolved, he’s still having the last laugh at the expense of the citizens he failed to adequately serve during his years on the force.

As Kriv, who is 56, was defending himself in traffic court last year, he also was eyeing retirement, going back and forth with the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago to sort out his pension benefits. He was told he’d gain another year of seniority — and a larger pension — if he stayed on the force until Jan. 15.

On Jan. 12, the department collected his badge and stripped him of police powers.

On Jan. 14, Kriv got another speeding ticket.

On Jan. 17, Kriv retired.

The next day, Kriv’s car was ticketed again for speeding.

First and foremost on Kriv’s mind wasn’t his long history of misconduct or his years of perjuring himself. It was when and how much he’d be getting paid for no longer being a cop. As ProPublica notes, the day after he was charged and released on bail, he emailed the pension board to find out how soon he could start expecting his $6,000/month pension checks to arrive.

Kriv has learned nothing. He may learn something if he actually does any time. But he won’t learn much and it certainly won’t be proportionate to the amount of misconduct he has gotten away with during his law enforcement career. And those who worked with him are smart enough to see how the system works and how they can game it for their own benefit.