It looks like Lisa Madigan’s grand jury is still quite active.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s environmental chief has been questioned before a Cook County grand jury investigating whether the governor’s office overstepped its authority last year in shutting down a landfill run by a relative of the governor’s estranged father-in-law, sources said Thursday.
Prosecutors last week brought before the grand jury Douglas Scott, director of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, as part of the joint probe begun more than a year ago by Atty. Gen. Lisa Madigan and Cook County State’s Atty. Richard Devine’s offices, according to two sources familiar with the proceedings.
Earlier this year, the grand jury heard testimony from two EPA administrators who were involved in the closing of the Joliet landfill, including a bureau chief for the EPA’s land management division.
Scott did not head the EPA at the time the agency shut down the landfill, but the sources said that during his April 19 appearance, he was asked to detail what the EPA’s standard operating procedures are for closing landfills. Former EPA Director Renee Cipriano, now a lobbyist, headed the EPA at the time. Cipriano did not return phone calls seeking comment Thursday. […]
A law enforcement source has said the investigation centers on the EPA’s decision to close the landfill in January 2005 and whether the governor’s office engaged in official misconduct or abuse of power in calling for the EPA to look into the landfill. […]
Prosecutors have visited the homes of EPA field inspectors who were initially involved in the inspection of the 45-acre dump.
Madigan’s grand jury was empaneled for 18 months, so we could hear something out of it this summer.