Our Cover Story

Our testing over the past 30 years demonstrates that complaints about police officers are often poorly investigated
and resistance to citizens reporting misconduct is high within police subculture. Many citizens are afraid to report
police abuse because they have no confidence in their local police department’s ability to address misconduct. While
regular citizens may have difficulties reporting misconduct wives and girlfriends of police officers have found little
support from the police or other governmental institutions when complaining about the conduct of a spouse
employed as a law enforcement officer.
Spouses and companions of police officers often find themselves in a no man’s land when they attempt to report
their significant other for abuse. If the matter goes to court as part of a divorce proceeding the officer’s standing may
have an impact on the proceedings. Often the complainant spouse finds that the justice system lines up behind their
husband or wife who is employed as a police officer. Punishments are sometimes tailored to allow the officer to
keep his/her job. When police officers respond to the home of an off-duty cop, investigating officers may go out of
their way to protect the off-duty officer’s interests.
Our guest this week, Constance Trujillo, is a woman who was married to a police officer for 25 years. She has never
been in trouble with the law and until recently lived quietly in Hazel Crest, Illinois. She has a Masters degree in
applied information technology, runs a successful property leasing business and is a committed member of her
church which she attends at least twice each week. Ms. Trujillo is
also a mother of two beautiful daughters. Until a few years ago she was the wife of senior parole agent Ronald
Trujillo.

According to Ms. Trujillo a few years into her marriage her husband became abusive, threatening on more than one
occasion to “cut off her head” with a Samurai sword. Ronald Trujillo maintained a collection of swords in his home.
When she complained to the local police a police supervisor came to her home and handcuffed her husband. He was
briefly taken to the police station. Ronald Trujillo was warned that the police did not need for his wife to press
the charges against him; the police would press the charges against him. After that warning, the abuse briefly
subsided. According to Ms. Trujillo her husband continued to verbally abuse her until he left her home for another
woman in 2005. During a contentious divorce proceeding Ms. Trujillo was arrested and charged with assault on two
police officers. We believe that the charges against Ms. Trujillo are false. The charges appear to be part of a pattern
of preferential treatment and protections afforded to her husband following their divorce in an effort to intimidate
and silence her with threats of a jail sentence.

This week’s radio show highlights the difficulties faced by a woman who lives in a town where the justice
system has failed to give her the due process she deserves. In 2005, Ms. Trujillo’s ex-husband filed for a contested
divorce in what was apparently an attempt to obtain a portion of Ms. Trujillo’s small business; as a result, the
divorce spanned over four years. According to Ms. Trujillo her husband has used his political ties to the legal
system, courts and local police to advance his cause in the divorce proceedings. The courts have been sympathetic to
her husband imposing extraordinary penalties on her for a number of questionable claims.
The Judge presiding over the divorce case, the Honorable Timothy P. Murphy, who is divorced and an openly
father's rights activist, ordered Ms. Trujillo to pay court reporting fees of roughly $8,000 despite knowing her
dwindling financial circumstances and without her being present in court. The judge was unsympathetic even when
Ms. Trujillo's attorney told him she did not have $8,000, and after questioning why Ronald Trujillo was not ordered
to pay anything. As a result of Ms. Trujillo’s inability to pay court fees, she was held in contempt of court and
issued a civil warrant. The judge ordered her to be arrested. Police officers entered Ms. Trujillo’s home without a
search warrant to arrest her. Ms.Trujillo was not home, she was attending church. The officers waited in the house
for nearly three hours until she returned. As part of the arrest operation, they lured Ms. Trujillo by using her
daughter, who was a minor, as a decoy. When Ms. Trujillo arrived at her home, she saw her daughter standing
outside in the middle of the night. As Ms. Trujillo entered her driveway and exited her vehicle, her daughter had
disappeared back into the house. At that moment, officers ambushed her. The officers alleged that Ms. Trujillo
assaulted them and resisted arrest. Ms. Trujillo was forcibly taken into custody and injured during the arrest.
Afterward, she was transported to the hospital and then to the cook county jail where she spent the next seven days
locked up in jail with other suspected criminals charged with various offenses. For a judge to impose seven days in
jail for a woman who’s never been in trouble with the law because she is unable to pay an $8,000 fine seems a bit
excessive.
While she was in jail her husband broke into her home. At the time of the break-in her husband was under a standing
court order not to come near her premises.
During the entry her husband stole property, took financial records and removed a weapon from the home. Then in a
desperate attempt to have more information, he stole mail out of Ms. Trujillo US PO Box, all with the blessings of
the Hazel Crest police department and judge Timothy P. Murphy, with him having full knowledge of the thief.
While in the house Ms. Trujillo's husband inspected and removed numerous personal items belonging to her.
Though Ms. Trujillo complained and reported the burglary to the Hazel Crest police department and to divorce
judge Timothy P. Murphy, no civil nor criminal charges were filed. Her husband has never been disciplined at his
place of employment for the illegal entry. The Hazel Crest police failed to pursue a prosecution of the break-in and
they failed to enforce a standing court order preventing her husband from coming to her home. We have been
unable to get an explanation about the break-in and failure to enforce a no contact order from the Hazel Crest Police
Department.
In addition, activist judge Timothy P. Murphy has continued to pursue financial gain by demanding that now Ms.
Trujillo obtains an $800,000 bond in her ex-husband's name or else face contempt charges and go to jail, knowing
that Ms. Trujillo is a single parent raising her minor daughter alone with limited resources.

This case is significantly more complicated than that of a woman who was arrested because she was unable to pay
court fees. Ms. Trujillo’s ex-husband is an employee for the State of Illinois Department of Corrections. His political
connections with government officials have been critical to the lack of justice Ms. Trujillo experienced. Ms. Trujillo
has found herself battling for the truth in two separate courts, civil and criminal, with inadequate counsel, dismal
financial circumstances, and an ex-husband, who has already remarried.
In Ms. Trujillo tenacious pursuit for justice, she is pursuing avenues with the FBI, the Cook County Sheriff's OPR,
the Cook County Circuit Chief Judge, the Illinois State Department, and many others to expose the corruption that
has been conspired against her.