Mayor's Corner
The Village of Tinley Park recently learned that the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC) Hearing Board recommended to the Illinois Supreme Court that attorney Stephen Eberhardt be suspended from the practice of law for six months.The ARDC Hearing Board also recommended that Eberhardt be required to take a long-overdue professionalism seminar and pay $26,951.22 as a sanction for filing a frivolous federal lawsuit against the Village before being permitted to reapply to practice law.
In recommending the six-month suspension, the Hearing Board underscored that Eberhardt’s actions were a deliberate and calculated nuisance whose sole purpose was to disrupt the Village and its officials with burdensome litigation. The ARDC Hearing Board’s recommendation can be found here.
The Hearing Board’s recommendation is well-deserved. For more than a decade, Eberhardt took aim at Tinley Park taxpayers, costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend frivolous lawsuits filed against the Village, its elected officials, staff and residents. From 2014 to 2022, Eberhardt and his associates filed 26 lawsuits against the Village, its current and previous elected officials, employees, volunteers, Village attorneys and residents. He filed at least 399 FOIA requests, numerous unfounded ethics complaints, unfounded administrative complaints, and sued residents for tens of millions of dollars.
Even though the residents Mr. Eberhardt targeted ultimately withstood his attacks, many were forced to endure significant psychological stress and incur significant financial expense in doing so. For example, Eberhardt sued one Village resident for $1 million in part for putting a political sign in the front yard. In all, Eberhardt has sued more than 100 people since 2010, and his actions against our Farmers Market vendors and volunteer commission members led many of them to quit out of frustration and fear of abuse.
In 2019, Village administration decided that the Village of Tinley Park would no longer bow to Eberhardt’s attacks. It decided to employ the tools available to it to defend the Village and its residents. The Village of Tinley Park, its residents, staff, volunteers and businesses are safer today because Eberhardt’s license to practice law will likely be suspended, and he'll no longer be able to abuse his position to fuel his vendetta against the Village.
I strongly encourage everyone to read the Hearing Board’s recommendation to fully understand the extent to which Stephen Eberhardt terrorized our village and the impact that had on the Village’s ability to provide programs and services our residents. We hope and pray those days are behind us all.
