Claim denied due to falsified report

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
March 31, 2009

I've written several times about Lisa Jarva, a McHenry County resident whose car was hit by a deputy last summer and who has not yet been paid for the damage to her car.

The accident occurred on July 13, 2008.
The crash was investigated by a sheriff's sergeant - not by an outside police agency, which is usually the case.
The initial crash report listed the deputy at fault.
The deputy screamed.
The sergeant changed the report and put the woman at fault.
The falsified report was delivered to the woman and she was told the report was wrong.
The County's 3rd party claims administrator refuses to pay the claim, based on the falsified report.
The Sheriff's Department refuses to correct the report.
The Sheriff does not respond to the woman's letter.

If those involved had any guts, the report would have been corrected the very next day. You bite the bullet. You fix it. You go on. The issue dies.

I've heard from many deputies who are incensed over the handling of that crash report.

Should it be necessary for Lisa Jarva to get a lawyer and sue the County? Her claim should have been paid in August. Now it's the end of March and she still hasn't been paid. Not even close.

If the Sheriff's Department covers up a claim for $5,600 in vehicle damage and stonewalls a County resident with silence, what will it take to shake things up?

As with many things, there is a lot more to the story, such as why the deputy had stopped a motorist there in the first place. And why there were three other squad cars stopped on the shoulder there. And why they had stopped the particular cars they did. And how close they were to an event near Richmond where liquor had been sold all day, without a permit and without arrests for illegal liquor sales.