Former Director of East St. Louis Library Sentenced
The former director of the East St. Louis public library has been sentenced for embezzling
thousands of dollars from the library for years. Marlon P. Bush, 48, of East St. Louis, Illinois,
was ordered to serve 12 months in prison, followed by six months of home detention and two years of
supervised release. From 2014 through 2016, while serving as the library’s director, Bush took
excess salary for himself, stole from the salary of another library employee, and charged numerous
personal purchases to the library’s credit cards. Bush pleaded guilty earlier this year to a
federal indictment charging him with wire fraud and embezzlement from the library, a unit of city
government that receives federal funds.
Steven D. Weinhoeft, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, said: “Investigating and
prosecuting public corruption remains among the highest priorities for the Department of Justice.
Citizens need to be able to trust the people who work in all levels of government. Serious harm is
done when public employees abuse that trust and put their own interests above the people they
serve. For that reason, we will continue to vigorously prosecute all forms of public corruption in
this district.”
As part of his sentence, Bush was ordered to pay $48,102.86 in restitution to the library.
The investigation was conducted by the Southern Illinois Public Corruption Task Force which
consists of agents with the FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, and the Illinois State Police. The
prosecution was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Norman R. Smith. Citizens are encouraged to
report suspicions of public corruption to the Southern Illinois Public Corruption
Task Force Tip Line at (618) 589-7373.
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3 Comments
Rory Steidl
Posted at 21:32h, 02 AugustOutstanding conviction and restitution order!
Sadie
Posted at 19:49h, 01 AugustCan’t wait to read all of these great articles; Rockford is another Township who does not care about the people. We lose revenue due to so many quid pro quo deals, I allege; how they treat one contractor differently than another is shameful. Not fining The Dog of a Roofing Contractor when they bundled the number of offences to be just one; when there were 4. Fines should have been doubled and then tripled, but former Asst City Atty Flores states; the ‘should be enforced by the city attorney’ [after the 4th violation in a calendar month] is “would or could, this is how we like to work with our contractors.” As we know this is IL, and what just happened? This guy is surely doesn’t want to work for the people; the ones paying property taxes, as there are many who don’t; not for the constituents and that is for certain.
The Mayor was pushing Home Rule; the old blank check system; so what is new about the way things are run to open doors for what happened in Dixon/and East St. Louis; read those articles, and how did this take so long to find out?
Rockford’s home roof inspections are nothing but drive byes; and they call it ‘an inspection;’ there are our tax dollars,working paying a salary for nothing! It doesn’t matter if your roof leaks or not, it is just the color of your shingles they care about; are they new or not, do you have any or not in place is not the question! Seriously! Other municipalities actually inspect, so call it what it is; a drive-by! My inspection was 2.5 minutes, and my neighbors was 60 seconds! LOL They dare not write down the time they arrived next to the time they left the home owner’s property; it would be embarrassing if that got out. Oh, it already did! Thank you IL LEAKS…I just leaked it! Sounds like a great title for a T-shirt!
Marion the Librarian
Posted at 13:12h, 01 AugustStealing from taxpayers and an employee in an already financially challenged area is despicable!!