State Rep. Thaddeus Jones, who’s also mayor of Calumet City, paid tens of thousands of dollars in the first quarter of this year to a law firm that specializes in criminal defense, records show, amid a multiyear federal investigation into tax issues involving his campaign funds that sources said is ongoing.
The U.S. attorney’s office more than three years ago issued a grand jury subpoena to the Illinois State Board of Elections pursuant to an “official criminal investigation” for records on three campaign funds controlled by Jones. No charges have been filed against Jones, but two people with knowledge of the issue said recently the investigation was still active.
A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office, Joseph Fitzpatrick, declined to comment.
State records covering the first quarter of 2025 show one of Jones’ campaign committees reported spending $35,000 on legal fees to Cheronis & Parente, which describes itself online as a criminal defense firm. Records show the Jones’ campaign has paid the law firm nearly $200,000 since February 2024.
Chris Parente, a partner at the firm, declined to comment on the expenditures by Jones’ campaign fund and said his firm doesn’t exclusively work on criminal cases.
A spokesperson for Jones, Sean Howard, also declined to comment and referred questions to Parente.
Jones, a Democrat who earlier this month was reelected as Calumet City’s mayor, has represented the 29th District since 2011.
His campaign fund additionally paid nearly $10,000 to Mullen Law Offices. The firm did not immediately return a request for comment.
Among the records that emerged along with the 2022 subpoena were previously undisclosed details of a 2017 hearing on a complaint filed by two Calumet City aldermen with the State Board of Elections that alleged Jones spent political funds for personal use.
The complaint cited a series of expenditures by Jones’ campaigns, including for outings to Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs games, and nearly $7,000 spent between 2014 and 2016 at a south suburban Hooters restaurant. The complaint also claimed payments to the Jones Foundation, a charity Jones founded that is headed by his wife, were illegally reported.
Calumet City Ald. James Patton, who filed the complaint along with Ald. DeAndre Tillman, this year mounted an unsuccessful challenge to Jones for mayor, losing in the February Democratic primary.
Following a hearing, the elections board ruled there was insufficient evidence to support most of the allegations and Jones was not fined.
Democratic election attorney Michael Kasper, who represented Jones at the 2017 hearing, argued it was “not unusual” to spend that much money at a Hooters across nearly three years.
Calumet City aldermen last year also questioned charges from Hooters, a Gordon Ramsay restaurant and a Cadillac lease on the city’s municipal credit card statement, though one alderman at the time said it wasn’t clear who made the purchases.
Jones’ campaign fund is still reporting spending at Hooters, according to the state campaign filings released last week. The Jones for State Representative campaign fund spent nearly $2,500 at the restaurant in the first three months of the year. The records showed there was a charge to the campaign fund for visits an average of about every five and a half days.