A Profile in Courage: A (Kevin Jay) Long Story
Categories: In the News,Civil Litigation,What They Don't Teach in Law School,Pro Se Litigation,Firearms Law,Criminal Law
Tags: Bart Ross unlawful use of a weapon Kevin J. Long Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart Judge Kathleen Flannigan Daley Center judicial threat U.S. Marshall Judge James Zagel courtroom safety Judge Joan Lefkow
If you live in Chicagoland and watch the news, it's hard not to know about the new "poster child" for judicial threats, Kevin J. Long.
Long was arrested March 16 attempting to enter the Daley Center with four knives in his briefcase. In addition to charges of unlawful use of a weapon and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, his arrest was a violation of his parole for his earlier felony offense, witness intimidation, which occurred in August 2008. The weekend following his arrest, a search warrant was issued and a search of his Northwest Side condo by the US Marshall and Cook County Sheriff's office uncovered a stash of weapons, including 1,600 knives, five handguns and assorted other weapons - some are illegal to possess at all (among them the handguns according to Chicago ordinance). As a convicted felon, all were cause for the 47 additional unlawful use of a weapon by a felon charges filed against him.
Long was incarcerated at Cook County Jail from August 2008 until shortly after his August 2009 sentencing in the felony matter, and then was in the custody of the IDOC until November 2009. He was paroled six months early as the state launched a program to release "non-violent" offenders to cut costs. The nearly 300 news reports covering these events indicate Long was arrested at least 18 times since 2000, and his offenses include masturbating in public, trespassing in judicial chambers and the witness intimidation felony conviction. The trespass charge is still pending trial.
But there is more to the story of Kevin J. Long, and our firm and several of its clients – including one particularly heroic gentleman, Emery Joe Yost - have been entangled in these matters for a decade.
Our story begins with Long's public masturbation offense which occurred at a Northwest Side Chicago Park District property across the street from Long's Milwaukee Ave. condo in 2000. Our client, Chicago Park District employee Yost witnessed and reported the incident to police, resulting in Long's arrest. After pleading to misdemeanor disorderly conduct, Long launched a campaign against Yost and others involved in the arrest. He filed a defamation suit in the US District Court against Yost, the arresting officer and other witnesses. While the City provided legal representation for the police officer involved, it did not for the Park District employee. Instead, Yost was forced to seek his own counsel and in 2002, representing Yost and other defendants, our firm became engaged with Long, a pro se litigant. All in all, between 2001 and 2005, Long filed nearly a dozen civil suits and appeals against Yost and others, including myself. Each case, through various means, was dismissed. Nonetheless, Long's malicious prosecutions of Yost and several co-defendants who our firm represented created more than $350,000 in legal fees.
At the same time Long was attacking Yost in court, he was also interfering with Yost's professional advancement and education. Despite others having witnessed Long and the incident at Wilson Park, Long wrote a series of letters to the Chicago Park District alleging that Yost manufactured the original masturbation story, disparaging him in his role as a Park District music instructor.
"Long was talented in his writings," Yost told Chicago Sun-Times reporter Natasha Korecki, "to the point that his story was getting questioned."
The issue escalated and, despite Yost having developed and launched a Chicago Park District music program for developmentally disabled students that had received worldwide acclaim, Yost was asked to resign his position as a Park District music instructor. He refused.
Yost's then-supervisor stated Long was not a threat to Park District patrons. When Yost would not resign, his supervisor initiated an unsuccessful legal campaign to have him fired. The Park District then transferred Yost to various parts of the city in another attempt to get him to resign . Yost again refused and since has been overlooked for promotions numerous times.
Long also wrote Justice Anne Burke, Yost's mentor in his master's degree program at DePaul University, again disparaging him, presumably to interfere with Yost's completion of his degree.
During the course of the numerous lawsuits filed by Long against Yost and others, our firm uncovered a number of illegal acts and threats by Long that were reported to authorities. Unfortunately, it wasn't until the tragic murders of Judge Joan Lefkow's family by pro se litigant Bart Ross that the proper level of attention was given to judicial threats. Many of Long's infractions during litigation are outlined in an opinion by the Honorable Judge James Zagel of the US District Court who presided over one of Long's suits against Yost and others. Among the illegal and threatening actions of Kevin Long during litigation were:
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filing court documents with drawings of cross-hairs and targets (much like those reportedly drawn on the lists of police officers and court officials found by law enforcement during the recent search of his condo),
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filing court documents with an invalid and forged notary signature (having spoken with the attorney whose expired notary stamp was used on Long's filings, we allege dumpster-diving as well as forgery),
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mailing court documents with pornography enclosed and,
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at the height of the anthrax scare, sending mail to Yost and his attorney containing white powder.
Ultimately, all of Long's lawsuits in Federal Court were dismissed, and based on his behavior throughout the series of litigation, Long was barred from filing in the Federal Court Building in Chicago without prior consent, and barred from entering the building without prior consent and a US Marshall escort. It is his behavior in the Federal Courts that put him on the judicial threat watch list, credited for his arrest on March 16.
However, our client Emery Joe Yost has suffered both professionally and financially at the hands of Long. After seven years of suffering, in 2007 Yost filed suit against Long for malicious prosecution. Our firm continues to represent Yost in this pending civil matter.
It was during this pending civil matter that Long was found trespassing in the chambers of Judge Kathleen Flannigan in March 2008, causing the Judge to recuse herself from the case. It also was in this matter that Long made the threat to kill my daughter in August 2008, resulting in his first felony conviction for witness intimidation which put him IDOC custody for the first time.
In addition, Long terrorized his Northwest Side neighbors. Art Whiteside, one of Long's many victims showed video stills to TV cameras of Long slashing the tires of his car. While the stills were a bit fuzzy, we've seen the video and it clearly is Kevin Long with his dog, Colonel, who vandalized Whiteside's vehicle.
Long also is suspected of throwing bricks through the window of Whitesides's home as well as the home of an elderly woman in the neighborhood, who we also represented.
A few of Long's other deviant acts, beyond the threat to kill my child, include:
- publishing the social security numbers of Yost and other defendants on court filings, putting them at risk of identity theft, and continuing to do so following a court order that he cease;
- identifying and contacting business associates of my wife, a non-party in these matters, claiming to be conducting “an investigation;
- interfering in the departure of two girls, ages 12 and 13 years, from a Park District facility by blocking their path and telling them to drop to their knees and perform an oral sex act on him;
- harassing staff at Northwestern Business College in Skokie, resulting in a court order barring him from the facilities.
When entering this series of cases in 2002 I never expected it to consume so many years and so markedly impose itself on my personal life and family. While taking the utmost care in assuring my child's safety, Emery Joe Yost and I knew Long was a dangerous person and could not be ignored or dismissed. We continued to work with the US Marshall and Cook County authorities and did not back down despite Long’s threats.
Long's early release from the felony conviction put a lot of people at risk, including my client, myself and most importantly my daughter, as well as all of the law enforcement and court officials whose names were found on the papers in his home during the recent search.
We are grateful to Tom Dart and his deputies, and the US Marshall's office for giving the proper level of attention to Kevin J. Long. We knew it was a matter of time before one such as he again would find himself behind bars.
A related story is how the parks dept threw (Emery) Joe Yost to the wolves providing no legal help when the frivolous lawsuits started piling up, and Long began harassing Joe at work to get him fired, and tried to get him kicked out of night school when he was working on his masters degree. Long invents some pack of lies to the univeristy president that forces a full scale 3-month ethics investigation; its a one year degree program, double hit because his mentor had to recuse herself. He was cleared, but it weighs heavily on your head knowing that his lie might somehow prevail.
Long sues the cops and Joe, and the arch bishop of chicago and anybody else that Long thinks he can screw with, at least they get legal assistance. Screw Joe, its his problem, not the park district.
Then Joe’s boss who tried to keep this hush hush and asked him to fall on his sword and quit his job; that guy goes down for over $100k embezzlement from the parks department. I guess he and the higher ups at the park had more important things to do than protect their employees and patrons against a menace like this.
Start looking at the leaders (park & judicial) and you will find a bunch of scared cockroaches who did not want to deal with this tar baby and were comfortably ok that Joe gets screwed over by their inaction.
Joe actually had one of his fellow employees tell him he should not have gotten involved! He is the adult in charge at the park responsible for the safety of kids.
What should he do, let Long molest the kid and he look the other way? Sounds like that might be what some people would do.
Its not like Joe woke up one day looking to meet and get sued by this piece of garbage, who is a paralegal.
He was doing the ethical thing by stopping it and calling the cops. If he did not do this, his life would not have crossed with Long.
Dig into this and you will get a story about why government does not work, screw the little guy because the fat cats won’t lift a finger when they are legally supposed to.
I live in Texas, it just amazes me this goes on in Chicago. I guess it comes down to somebody is going to have to get killed like the Lefkow case before somebody says we got to do something. My guess is that Long will be out in a few months after serving time at prison-lite. He is good at polishing boots and kissing ass if he thinks it will pull one over.
I got audio recordings of this whack job trying to intimidate me long distance. The fool leaves messages on the answer machines, very explicit.
But he has not killed anybody yet and there are bigger problems like some low level pot bust or somebody the CJ system feels they do an easy conviction by pleading guilty.
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Matt, Thanks for your comment. Yes, Joe Yost did have an enormous fight on his hands and it's outrageous that he didn't get the support from those who were supposed to be backing him...which is what makes his battle even more heroic. The issue that you reference re his former boss - that's a whole other story we may cover here someday. Sadly that kind of behavior seems to be throughout Chicago government.
And thanks for reminding us about the phone messages...we have a few of those too. Perhaps our Webmaster will get some audio posted to accompany this story. We've seen a lot of naysayers on the newspaper comments - suggesting the guy was harmless - but we all know better. Perhaps the sound of Long's voice and hearing his threats will convince them if Joe Yost's story doesn't.
We ecourage everyone to check out the links in this post - Judge Zagel's opinion in particular - as that just demonstrates Long's complete disregard for the law and judicial process...nearly as much as his attempt to enter Daley Center with weapons in his briefcase showed.
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the reason yost did not get legal and the police did is that the park district is not a city organization like they lie and tell people they are the city covers all their employees from lawsuits, i.e school teacher, police ,fire etc. but the Park district is not a city job or organization the mayor just controls it and puts his clowns in control of it...
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Rob, thanks for sharing your point of view. Yost did get legal representation from our firm, but the city did not pay for it as they did the police officers.
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I met Mr. Long when I worked in the Dirksen building. He was a notorious filer of junk lawsuits. He was also banned from the Northern District law library for propositioning interns. Mr. Long was apparently even more appalling than I knew.
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Yes. I believe if you read Judge Zagel's opinion (link in original post) there's mention of his interactions with law library personnel. Thanks for your insight.
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There's lots of friends of Chicago Park District CEO Tim Mitchell and Mayor Daley that know all about Kevin Long.
They have lots of records of Kevin in incident reports, that might be burned or stay locked away in Tim Mitchell's file cabinet.
Roger Konow and his underlings had meetings on how they would "screw over Mr Yost', for causing them to actually do their job.
THEY COULD HAVE put security at Wilson Park to defend the park workers.They could have provided legal counsel to the employees getting sued.
Instead Park folks decided to blacklist him. Tom Bracey former Park District Supervisor and Manager stated that his boss Roger Konow from the Park's North Region wanted to "send Yost to the dogs over at Stateway Gardens, let's see him teach music there" said Konow.
Tom Bracey, William Hogan, Becky Kliber and Roger Konow were all aware of the problems with Kevin Long. What did they do:
Sun Times reported that Roger Konow and William Hogan lost their jobs with the park district, something about missing cash is what Lynn Sweet reported. Boy that story was muted fast! Then they magically re appear, with jobs, with the sister of the park district, Chicago Public Schools, way to go ARNIE , these guys showed up at your schools on your watch! I bet Arnie knows both these guys personally from political functions.
Tom Bracey resigned from the parks, JUST IN TIME! Just in time to get away from the sun times report. He had other things to worry about, like having an affair with his co worker Becky Kliber, on Park time, in hotels paid for by the Park District. No one wants this in the papers, that's why the papers fail to talk about Daley's buddy's at the Chicago Park District.
Kevin Long was very active at the Park District and only a few brave souls decided to do what was right. Way to go to all you people who do the right thing! Those political phonies and cronies will get their day in the paper soon.
I worked at Wilson Park, I know what happened. So does everyone in the neighborhood, I hope the REAL story comes out. I wish the Alderman would have stepped up to the plate and done something, afterall, Kevin Long was going after his family before the Yost family turned him in.
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Thanks for your insider's view PPDL! We've seen a lot of comments on various news stories and posts asking why Kevin Long wasn't put away, or at least watched closely, much sooner.
What we've heard from a lot of individuals who were directly affected by Kevin Long is that they were afraid - of both physical harm and/or having to defend a lawsuit.
Frivolous or not, defending a lawsuit costs money - to both the defendant and the taxpayers who are supporting the court system. Few were willing to take that risk. Joe Yost is an example of why.
Besides the actual costs of his first attorney before we came in (our costs are being deferred pending collection from Mr. Long in the ongoing malicious prosecution matter) Joe Yost suffered irreparable damage to his career.
Finally, members of our firm know Roger Konow and Willie Hogan and their opinion...well, let's just say they were "every man for themselves" kinds of guys. Not our ideal choices for holding positions of public trust. One would think that the story about their "sudden" departure from the park district should have gotten at least half the attention that Mr. Long's story finally did in the past week!
So just for kicks we Googled to try to find an archived news story about that "incident." Here's what we got:
Your search - "roger konow" AND "william hogan" AND "chicago park district" - did not match any documents.
Amazing how far the hand of politics can reach!
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WOW!!!! That's truly incredible!!! Just goes to show how backward the judicial system works. This guy is an obvious threat to society and he's allowed to skate because of some good behavior but, in the mean time, there are people who go to jail and are branded felon's, who's life's get turned upside down, just because they had a little weed on them.
It freaks me out to think that the public continues to go with the flow of idiocy, its truly mind blowing.
GOOD FOR YOU!!!
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I feel sad that Kevin Jay Long has gotten to hurt so many people and he thinks he is above the law and go after others without cause. How do I know? well he is my ex-brother-in-law that I took him to court for what he tried to do to my family and won all the court cases against him. If you look in to his past his 1st father-in-law a prominent cardiologist was taken for $30,000 by Kevin stealing it from his bank account. How identity thief. The father-in-law did not press charges against him so not to be Embarrassed...
Kevin will use the legal system to wiggle out of the charges. I hope that Joseph P McCaffery watches out Long is intelligent and yet educate derelict and is dangerous.
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I feel sad that Kevin Jay Long has gotten to hurt so many people and he thinks he is above the law and go after others without cause. How do I know well he is my ex-brother-in-law that I took him to court for what he tried to do to my family and won all the court cases against him. If you look in to his past his 1st father-in-law a prominent cardiologist was taken for $30,000 by Kevin stealing it from his bank account. How identity thief. The father-in-law did not press charges against him so not to be Embarrassed...
Kevin will use the legal system to wiggle out of the charges. I hope that Joseph P McCaffery watches out Long is intelligent and yet an educate derelict and is dangerous.
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It's scary to see that after all that Kevin J. Long has been through, he gets to walk free again. Clearly, this man is a detriment to society.
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Mark, Thanks for your comment and interest. Note that Mr. Long is not walking free. He was released early from the IDOC on his felony conviction however he was on parole when arrested for the incidents in March of this year. Those charges did have a bond set but the parole violation is a no-bond. He is locked up where he belongs.
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