John K. Butler and Lisa Y. Butler
Claims to fame:
He: Former Cass County, Illinois, GOP chair; volunteer for failed Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Ryan; employee, state Department of Human Services; pardoned felon; husband; father
She: Employee, state Department of Aging; wife; mother
They: Convicted sex offenders
Moral apex: Both were arrested in 2002 for fondling a 16-year-old niece once during the summer of 2000, and again over Labor Day Weekend, 2001.
Charges: One count each of felony criminal sexual assault, and two counts each of felony aggravated criminal sexual abuse.
Sentences: Three years in prison for him, four years’ probation for her. (Each could have received up to 29 years in prison, plus a fine of $25,000.)
Why did she only get probation? Because, said Brown County Circuit Judge David Slocum, she needed to “be there for her children.”
How is he a “pardoned felon”? “According to State Journal-Register records,” reported the State Journal-Register in 2002, “Gov. George Ryan pardoned John Butler in 2001 for burglary convictions in Saline and Pope counties in 1986. He’d been sentenced to probation and fines and ordered to pay restitution.
“Butler said in February that both incidents involved ‘a couple guys out riding around drinking beer’ and breaking into barns.”
George Ryan? Wasn’t he…? Right — the Republican governor of Illinois who was sentenced to prison for six and a half years on federal corruption charges. But don’t be too happy about that; Ryan’s conviction ensures a lock on the governor’s office for Democratic Disgrace Rod Blagojevich — who, as we all know, has been more trouble than a thousand George Ryans. But then, that’s Illinois politics for you.
Faulty math: When confronted with Butler’s prior felony conviction, Jim Ryan spokesman Dennis Culloton brushed it off, since “It was a nonviolent crime while the guy was a teenager.”
Hardly a “teenager,” Dennis — Butler was born in 1959, and was convicted in 1986. That would make him 27 years old.
(In one news report on the pardon, Butler himself said he was 23 at the time. My, my, Republicans do have a problem with simple math, don’t they? Oh well, at least Butler didn’t claim he was a “teenager.”)
Where are the Butlers now? You can keep track of their whereabouts through the Illinois Sex Offender Registry. As of this writing, they’re not living at the same address — so we’re guessing that, on top of everything else, they’re now adulterers, in the biblical sense of the word.
Suggested Bible reading for Mr. and Ms. Butler:
Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?— Matthew 23:33
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