Former Medical Examiner Grants Newspaper Interview In Wake Of Scandal
CHICAGO (CBS) -- The former Cook County Medical Examiner is speaking out for the first time after being forced from office two months ago.
As WBBM Newsradio's Dave Berner reports, Dr. Nancy Jones tells the Chicago Sun-Times the Medical Examiner's office had a number of serious problems. Valuables were taken from the pockets of corpses by morgue attendants, and unpaid county bills caused medical waste to pile up, she told the newspaper.
LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio's Dave Berner reports
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The unpaid bills also led to to lawsuit by Lee Lumber, she told the newspaper.
Jones joined the Medical Examiner's office in 1986, and worked both for the first Medical Examiner, Dr. Robert Stein, and his successor, Dr. Edmund Donoghue.
She tells the Sun-Times the office was staffed with patronage workers, including drug addicts, who were not fired because they were close to the Stroger family – which held the County Board presidency from 1994 until 2010.
Donoghue responded to the Sun-Times, saying there was theft, but that the culprits were always disciplined.
Jones told the Sun-Times that despite the former County Board President Todd Stroger's unpopularity, she was able to work with him. But in the article, she did not speak well of current Board President Toni Preckwinkle, whom she called "evil."
Preckwinkle had only praise for Jones in speaking to the Sun-Times about her comments.
Jones came under fire back in January for mismanagement, after bodies were found piled up and stacked upon each other at the morgue, at 2121 W. Harrison St.
Preckwinkle announced in June that Jones would be stepping down at the end of that month.
