Vigilante or Hero?

What kind of reaction did you get, both from regular people and from other law-enforcement officials, when you decided to no longer perform evictions?
From regular people, I've never seen such an outpouring of gratitude. Which was really surprising to me, because in all honesty, this wasn't something where you had an alternative. This was so clearly wrong … seriously, this wasn't a close call. You just can't do this. From other law-enforcement people, it's been a mixed bag.

The Illinois Bankers Association accused you of "vigilantism."
I'm an attorney. I don't consider myself a constitutional scholar, but I did my work. They were calling me a vigilante because of cavalierly, in their mind, ignoring court orders. What I explained to them, and felt very strongly about, is that the one [constitutional] right that doesn't have a lot of disagreement over it is due process. People argue over guns and abortion, but they don't argue when it comes to due process. At a bare minimum, before you take someone's person or property, they get some type of notice. And it was so abundantly clear that we were taking most people's largest investment in their life without [anyone having told] them. [My critics] came out real aggressive right away; somebody filed a lawsuit, tried to hold me in contempt; they tried to take my law license. Now it's died down somewhat.

You testified before Congress on this topic in November. What was your goal?
To try to put a face on it. I was surrounded by people who were clearly experts in their field, but I was the only one there who was able to put a real face on what was happening out there, as opposed to what people are seeing on their ledgers and on the books. I could have gone on for hours with stories.

I think it had a real impact. I'm a former legislator, I'm not naive, but the senators I talked to, and a load of congressmen as well, all were very interested about what's going on in the street. Because the whole world is so removed from that. I was able to tell them, "No, no, here's what's really happening. The chaos you're talking about in the banking industry, I'm experiencing that same chaos in the street, and it's chaos that no one has ever seen before."

What's the current state of foreclosure evictions in Cook County?
I agreed to lift the moratorium when the court agreed to put together some safeguards to prevent these abuses from going on. A lot of people said, "OK, you're back in business." That couldn't be further from the truth. Since the moratorium supposedly ended with the agreement with the judges, I've had over 500 requests to conduct evictions, and I've only done 35, 36 of them. The safeguards we got put in place aren't retroactive; it is going to take us a year to shake out. Now, we're pretty much still at a standstill. We're not going ahead with [eviction requests] unless they're right, and most of them are not right.

This is the kind of issue you could run for higher office on. You also got a lot of attention last week, suing Craigslist on prostitution grounds. Have you thought about it?
It's funny, because it's a very valid question, because of the way the political world is. But I haven't really given it much thought. I tremendously enjoy what I'm doing, and we have so many more things we're working on here. We just have a real ambitious agenda.

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