Melrose Park Mayor Ron Serpico Being Sued For "State Sanctioned Bullying" And The Details Of The Case Are Bananas
Chicago Tribune - “Even by contemporary standards, such as they are, that outburst was an extraordinary display of profanity and aggression,” U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger wrote about Serpico’s remarks in January 2021. “It suggests a deep level of personal animus. And it shows a willingness to abuse one’s position as a public servant. It was not the finest hour in the annals of public service.”
Seeger’s 25-page ruling denying the village’s motion to dismiss most counts of the suit filed by Melrose Park resident Michael Cozzi and his elderly parents, Vincent and Angeline, means the bulk of the allegations have cleared a first hurdle toward a trial. Vincent Cozzi died last month due to complications from COVID-19, court filings show.
Both Serpico and the village have denied the allegations in the suit. In a statement to the Tribune on Tuesday, the mayor said the village was “pleased” the judge dismissed the due process claim, saying Cozzi “was in fact given ample and repeated opportunity to correct violations and have his tickets dismissed, opportunities which he chose to squander.”
“In reciting the plaintiffs’ allegations, the judge acknowledges that discovery is only beginning in the lawsuit, and we are confident that once this case moves forward, it will become clear that the Village of Melrose Park was completely justified in the issuance of the citations,” the emailed statement read.
The mayor did not address the other allegations in the suit, or the comments by the judge about his recorded tirade.
The suit alleged the harassment campaign started in 2020 with a barrage of municipal tickets ostensibly over lawn furniture and political signs in the Cozzis’ yard. It quickly escalated into frivolous parking citations and verbal threats — including one incident where Serpico himself drove past the home and allegedly told Michael Cozzi, “You’re lucky I don’t get out of this car and beat your (expletive),” according to the suit.
In all, the Cozzis were slapped with more than 60 tickets totaling about $30,000, and when they didn’t pay up, the village slapped a lien on their home, according to the suit.
“If the reader is thinking that things have, at this point, gone completely off the rails, buckle up, because the ride is not yet over,” Seeger wrote in his opinion, which conveyed equal parts shock and snark over Serpico’s alleged behavior.
First off, props to this Judge Seeger for one of the best written opinions I’ve ever read.
This guys a better writer than 90% of people at Barstool, myself included. Can we hire him?
Just zingers left and right.
But what a fucked up story.
This guy got on the Mayor’s shit list so bad that he was waking up to huge tickets taped to his door every day.
After the tab ran to 30k his house got hit with a lien.
In January 2021, as the village continued to issue thousands of dollars in fines to the family, Michael Cozzi went to a village meeting to express his concerns. Before the meeting began, he surreptitiously recorded a testy exchange with the mayor with an audio recorder.
“To put it mildly, Mayor Serpico responded poorly,” Seeger wrote. “He lost his cool. He lost his temper. And if he has any ability to express himself without using expletives, he lost that too.”
On the recording, Seeger said, Serpico “used the ‘F-word’ over and over, as a noun, a verb, and an adjective,” hurled a racist epithet for Blacks at Cozzi, who is white, and told him, “Do me a (expletive) favor and sit down and shut the (expletive) up.”
Serpico also employed the particularly colorful Chicago phrase “jagoff,” Seeger said.
Chicago has introduced me to many things I never knew before.
Chicken Vesuvio. Italian beef. Giardiniera. Political corruption at levels thyne eyes have never seen. Just to name a few.
But at the top of the list, just slightly above Chicken Vesuvio, has got to be the term "jagoff".
(sidebar - I am planning to do a "Chicken Vesuvio Week" where I hit a different spot in Chicago each day to try and feature their Vesuvio. I know Chicago is known for their Italian Beef but I think it should be known for its Vesuvio equally if not more. It's a Chicago staple, something I never heard of until I got here, and most of all it is a FIRE dish.)
It's so simple. So subtle. Yet lands like an anvil being tossed from the back of a military cargo plane. Every time.
To fellow Chicagoan's it can signal you are dead serious.
(oh fuck, he just called me a jagoff. I guess I better move my car right fuckin now.)
Or it can convey a sense of playfulness.
(then this little jagoff said fuck it and licked the whip cream out of her ass in front of us all)
And everybody knows the jagoff in the story is the man.
But to outsiders, it strikes a very different cord.
My friends from home squint and give a look of “did he just say jack off with a weird accent thing?”
No jag off. I said jag off.
Just a perfect insult.
If we’re drafting insults, I’m taking it 1/1.
(Sidebar - when you steal this idea Eddie I better be the invited guest)
When Cozzi asked the mayor, “What did I do to you?” the innocent question “sent Mayor Serpico into the next stratosphere,” Seeger wrote.
“What he lacked in elegance — and in range of vocabulary — he made up for in directness,” Seeger said. “He told him where to go, and then some,” Seeger said.
But, Seeger said, the Cozzis “went to the federal courthouse instead.”
Serpico later publicly apologized for his comments, saying Cozzi had “repeatedly” harassed him and the village board of trustees and that “my frustration got the better of me.”
In addition to Serpico himself, the Cozzis’ lawsuit also names the village, and Seeger’s ruling leaves the door open to possible constitutional violations, known in federal litigation as a “Monell” claim.
First off, if I told you to close your eyes and envision what you think the mayor of a mob-run enclave of Chicago, still operating in the old school, looked like, and you didn't picture this guy, then shame on you.
Ron Serpico is straight out of central casting.
Exaggerated accent and all.
You also have to love him dragging his Police Chief(s?) up to the podium with him to stand behind him for this "apology".
Like he's the fucking President during wartime and these are his chiefs of staff.
Some of the original inspectors who issued the tickets told the Cozzis that it was at the direction of the mayor, according to the suit. Seeger also pointed to Serpico’s alleged snide comments about the condition of the Cozzis’ home at the village meeting as an indication that he was personally involved in the dispute.
“If this case were a Monell crime scene, the mayor left his fingerprints, footprints and DNA all over the place,” Seeger said.
Seeger also noted that just days after the village was served with the lawsuit, the tickets, which had been issued virtually daily for months, suddenly stopped coming.
At a hearing last year, the judge said he intended to get to the bottom of it.
“You know, if the case goes forward, the Village of Melrose Park and whoever’s running the town should be prepared to give a rather detailed explanation to me about why those tickets were issued. Okay?” Seeger told the village’s attorneys in April 2021, according to a transcript.
All in all just a wild story. Probably not so much if you grew up around here. Especially Melrose Park (or Rosemont, or Cicero, etc.)
People accustomed to this stuff read stories like this and say what the fuck do you expect? “You run for mayor in Illinois so you can do this kind of shit. Not for the state salary.”
Touché
P.s. - the Italian girls from Melrose Park are very attractive but might be the craziest chicks in the world. And those are fighting words.