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Anita Alvarez
Cook County State's Attorney
Communications Department
Chicago, IL 60602
(312) 603-3423
saomedia@cookcountygov.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

March 3, 2010

A former supervisor at the Cook County Jail has been sentenced to six years in prison for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars collected from inmates in custody, according to the Office of Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez.

Elizabeth Hudson, 63, of 9718 S. Woodlawn, was the former Supervisor of the Inmate Trust Fund and was responsible for reconciling and depositing the cash collected from detainees at the jail’s intake unit.

In 2008, administrators conducting an internal audit on the Inmate Trust Fund discovered a shortfall of over $27,000. Becoming suspicious, they conducted a more extensive audit that revealed that the fund had an even larger deficit of $370,000 since 2004. The audit also discovered that the funds being credited to inmates was exceeding the amount actually deposited in the fund’s bank account.

Investigators began to review the fund’s records and discovered a pattern to the thefts leading them to the defendant. Investigators were able to further corroborate their suspicions of Hudson based on her computer activity and bank deposits.

Hudson was arrested and charged with theft and today she pled guilty to one count of theft and was sentenced by Judge Thomas Gainer to six years in prison.

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