Dorothy A. Brown
Dorothy Ann Brown Cook, also known as
Dorothy A. Brown is an American lawyer and politician associated with the Democratic Party. Brown currently serves as the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County in the First Judicial District of Illinois.
She was an unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of Chicago in the 2007 and 2019 elections, an unsuccessful candidate for Chicago City Clerk in 1999, and an unsuccessful candidate for President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 2010.
Early life, family, and education
Brown grew up in Minden, Louisiana, one of eight children. Her father worked in the laundry room of the Louisiana Army Ammunitions Plant near Minden. He also owned a cotton farm in Athens, Louisiana, where Brown and her seven siblings helped him pick and chop cotton. Brown's mother worked as a cook and a domestic.At Webster High School, Brown was captain of the girl's varsity basketball team, and graduated in the top ten percent of her class. Brown studied at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and graduated Magna cum Laude. In 1977, Brown received her license as a Certified Public Accountant. In 1981, she received her Master of Business Administration with honors from DePaul University in Chicago. In 1996, Brown received her J.D. degree with honors from Chicago-Kent College of Law.
Professional career
Brown worked for Arthur Andersen and Commonwealth Edison as a certified public accountant. She also helped to start a minority public accounting firm. From 1991 to 2000, Brown worked as the General Auditor for the Chicago Transit Authority.Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County (2000–present)
Cook County voters elected Brown as the Clerk of the Circuit Court in 2000, and reelected her several times. As the official keeper of records for all judicial matters brought into one of the largest unified court systems in the world, Brown is responsible for managing an annual operating budget of more than $100 million and has a workforce of over 1,800 employees. In 2014 the Chicago Sun-Times described the Clerk's office as "a 2,300-employee office, one of the last true bastions of political patronage in Illinois".Major projects and services developed under Brown’s leadership include: Electronic filing, a Clerk of the Circuit Court mobile app: "Court Clerk Mobile Connect," an Online Traffic Ticket Payment System, an Electronic Tickets system, Mortgage Surplus Search, SmartForms, Smart Kiosks, and IDMS. All of these "Green Court"/E-Court initiatives improve accuracy, save time for court users, cut costs for the court system, and conserve energy.
In 2012, during Brown's third re-election campaign, the Chicago Tribune editorial board declined to endorse any candidate, citing "Brown's years of failed assurances to modernize the obsolete, paper-choked office she heads."
In August 2015, the slating committee of the Cook County Democratic Party narrowly voted to endorse Brown for re-election to a fifth term in the March 2016 primary elections. In early October 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation executed a search warrant at Brown's home and seized her County-issued cell phone. Chicago attorney Ed Genson represented Brown. On October 23, 2015 the Cook County Democratic Party withdrew its endorsement of Brown, and endorsed Michelle A. Harris.
Both the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicago Tribune declined to endorse Brown or her opponent in the 2016 campaign.
In August 2019, Brown announced that she would not seek reelection to a sixth term in 2020.
Scandals
While she was not charged with a crime by either state nor federal prosecutors, Brown, along with her office and campaign, were implicated publicly in several federal and state investigations dating to 2006.Brown accepted cash gifts on her birthday and Christmas from her employees, a practice that several former employees described as being an unspoken requirement of their jobs. In 2008 Brown announced that she would no longer accept the gifts after questions arose regarding how she claimed the items on her tax returns.
In May 2006, Brown chaired the host committee for a Chicago fund raiser to support the re-election of Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans, Louisiana. Information technology contractor Mark St. Pierre, who had worked contracts for both the city of New Orleans and Cook County government and contributed to both Brown and Nagin, organized the event. Although Brown was not charged, Nagin was indicted on corruption charges on January 18, 2013, and convicted in 2014.
In January 2010, the Inspector General of Cook County investigated Brown's "Jeans Day" program, in which Clerk's office employees could donate cash to the Jeans Day fund and wear casual clothing to work on a Friday. The Jeans Day fund, which grew to over $300,000, was supposed to be used to fund employee morale activities and charities. The Inspector General's report documented expenditures unrelated to charitable causes, including Chicago Bulls and Six Flags Great America tickets and employee parking reimbursements. The Inspector General's report cleared Brown's office of wrongdoing, but advised Brown provide better controls. Brown discontinued Jeans Day in August 2010.
In June 2011, a contributor to Brown's political campaigns gave a commercial property at the intersection of Pulaski, Ogden and Cermak Avenues on Chicago's southwest side to Brown's husband. Two months later, the deed was transferred to The Sankofa Group, L. L. C., Brown and her husband's for-profit consulting firm, and in November 2011 The Sankofa Group sold the property for $100,000. The Cook County Inspector General and by a grand jury convened by prosecutors with the Cook County State's Attorney's office opened an investigation of the land deal.
In 2013, it was reported that a campaign donor had given Brown's husband a parcel of land for $1. Brown’s name was later added to paperwork and Sankofa Group ended up on the title. Brown and her husband sold the land for $100,000. Brown did not disclose the land as a gift or donation on state economic interest forms.
In November 2015, a federal indictment alleged that an clerk's office employee had been rehired by the Clerk's office weeks after lending $15,000 to a company controlled by Brown's husband, then lied to a federal grand jury about the incident. The employee pleaded guilty in 2016, and the "going rate" for a job in the office may have been $10,000.
In 2018, a federal probe detailed accounts of alleged job-buying in Brown's office.
In March 2019, a federal indictment charged Donald Danagher with bribery, alleging a pay-for-contract scheme which involved making donations to Brown's campaign and scholarship funds in exchange for his debt collection business receiving a contract.
On April 26, 2019, a jury convicted former Brown aide Beena Patel, who had supervised approximately 500 employees in the clerk's office, of perjury concerning her federal grand jury testimony in 2015 and 2016.
In late 2019, Brown's office had a class-action lawsuit brought against it alleging that it had charged illegal fees to people seeking child support enforcement.
For much of her tenure, Brown has been criticized for failing to provide stored records that had been requested in a timely fashion.
Pursuits of other office
Brown unsuccessfully ran for Treasurer of the City of Chicago in 1999, Mayor of Chicago in 2007 and President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners in 2010.Despite the scandals mentioned before, Brown attempted to run for mayor of Chicago in 2019, but was removed from the ballot for failing to complete the required paperwork. Following her removal from the ballot, Brown endorsed Amara Enyia for mayor. However, Enyia failed to qualify for the runoff election, which was won by former federal prosecutor Lori Lightfoot.