A primary-term Prepare dinner County elected official was arrested and charged with drunk driving Sunday after she crashed into one other automobile on the North Aspect, in accordance with Chicago Police data.
Democrat Samantha Steele — certainly one of three commissioners within the comparatively obscure however highly effective Prepare dinner County Board of Evaluation — faces one misdemeanor depend of driving drunk.
Police say they arrested Steele, 45, within the 5000 block of North Ashland Avenue at 8:49 p.m. Sunday.
In keeping with the incident report, police encountered two automobiles with “in depth” injury, and Steele instructed officers that she drove into one other car.
Officers then noticed an open bottle of crimson wine on the ground of the passenger facet of her automobile.
“I noticed her eyes had been bloodshot and glassy,” an officer wrote within the report. “I additionally detected a powerful odor of alcoholic beverage coming from her breath as she spoke.”
The officer mentioned Steele refused to carry out subject sobriety checks and when requested how a lot she had needed to drink, she replied, “I need my lawyer, and I’m not speaking to you.”
Steele was arrested and handcuffed after complaining of ache from head accidents and was being handled at a hospital.
Throughout her arrest, Steele “repeatedly mentioned, ‘Is your penis that small’” to an officer, in accordance with the police report.
Her courtroom date was set for Dec. 27, in accordance with the police report.
Steele didn’t return messages searching for remark Monday.
Police and political data present Steele lives in Evanston. She represents the Board of Evaluation’s District 2, which incorporates a lot of the North Aspect of Chicago and the northern suburbs.
Steele was first elected to the Board of Evaluation — which has energy to determine on property tax appeals — in 2022, defeating incumbent Michael Cabonargi within the Democratic main after she had labored on Prepare dinner County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s transition group.
An aide to Steele, Frank Calabrese, just lately filed a whistleblower lawsuit in opposition to her and her chief of workers in federal courtroom.
Earlier within the yr, Steele defended giving a county job to a former northwest Indiana politician who had pleaded responsible in a federal case.
And Steele has discovered herself on the center of the dispute over the Chicago Bears’ property tax invoice for the outdated Arlington Park racecourse property, the place the soccer group has thought-about constructing a brand new stadium.
Dan Mihalopoulos is an investigative reporter on WBEZ’s Authorities & Politics Workforce. Tom Schuba is a prison justice editor for the Solar-Instances.
