SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — As a Republican candidate for governor, Richard Irvin has promoted himself as a no-nonsense, law-and-order candidate who as a onetime prosecutor put “gangsters, drug dealers and wife beaters” in jail.
Irvin was a prosecutor in Cook and Kane counties from 1998, shortly after getting his law license, until 2003. But he then worked for almost 15 years as a criminal defense attorney, specializing in defending people accused of the same types of crime he rails against in his campaign ads.
Shortly before becoming mayor of Aurora in 2017 and stepping away from his law practice, for example, he represented a man accused of attacking a police officer. He’s also represented clients accused of kidnapping, domestic violence and sexual assault.
It’s a significant but unmentioned part of his resume as he follows a tough-on-crime Republican script to go after Gov. J.B. Pritzker and his fellow Democrats.
The crime issue has been pushed by billionaire businessman Ken Griffin, whose long-anticipated support of Irvin was formally announced last week and whose money is seen as critical to the GOP candidate’s success. Griffin, who has promised to go “all-in” to defeat Pritzker, made an initial contribution of $20 million to Irvin’s campaign.
In a widely aired campaign TV spot, Irvin portrays himself as being on the front lines in the fight against crime. “When I was a prosecutor, I’d go around with these guys. We raided crack houses and busted up gangs,” he says, implying he’s with a police officer. “This apartment complex over here? It was bad. But we took it back.”
John Shaw, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, said Irvin’s aggressive promotion of his law-and-order credentials is a “slam dunk” at a time when crime is an issue that has resonated in Illinois and across the country.
“It’s not all that unusual in American politics for candidates to dramatically expand one piece of their record and diminish another, even though the part that’s being diminished might be a much more consequential and longer stretch of their career,” he said.
The Law Office of Richard C. Irvin & Associates merged with another attorney’s firm in 2017 when Irvin took office as Aurora’s first Black mayor. His original firm’s website said 90% of Irvin’s focus as an attorney was on criminal defense, and that the firm handled drug cases and an array of felony cases ranging from robbery and burglary to home invasion and reckless homicide.
The site explained how a domestic battery charge can be “successfully defended” in court: “If the victim is the only other person present when the battery occurs, and the victim does not appear in court, the state cannot prevail in the case.”
Irvin’s website went dark just last week, which quickly became political fodder for Democrats.
“Maybe it’s his use of language that downplays the severity of domestic violence, blaming it on how ‘emotions can run hot’ or ‘tempers can flare,’ or how his ‘Aurora domestic violence attorneys will zealously defend’ the rights of violent abusers,” the Democratic Governors Association said in a statement released Friday.
Since becoming a candidate for governor, Irvin’s public statements have shown subtle adjustments to his approach on crime.
During the 2020 civil unrest following the death of George Floyd, Irvin staunchly endorsed the Black Lives Matter movement, which has become synonymous with a push to fully or partially reallocate police resources to communities in economic peril — sometimes referred to as “defunding” the police.
But in his launch video for governor, Irvin declared that “all lives matter” — words that were superimposed on the screen — while pledging unwavering support for law enforcement.
In a Feb. 14 fundraising email, Irvin went even further by giving away “Proud to Back the Blue” stickers to donors to his campaign.
To be sure, working as a criminal defense attorney is not at odds with support of law enforcement. But voters who only know of Irvin from his TV ads and campaign rhetoric will have only a partial picture of the varied roles he has played in the criminal justice system.
Kane County court records provide a look at many of the cases he handled. In 2017, shortly before leaving his practice, Irvin represented Alexander Nunez, who was accused of kicking a police officer in the left shoulder and face, and punching someone else in the face, court records show.
Court records show Nunez pleaded guilty to a felony charge of aggravated battery to a police officer the following year and was sentenced to three years in prison.
Irvin in 2007 represented Juan Martinez, one of several alleged gang members accused of abducting eight people, four of them children or teenagers, from a restaurant at gunpoint and holding them captive at a Carpentersville home, court records show.
Irvin’s client pleaded guilty to attempted aggravated kidnapping about 4 1/2 months later, in early 2008, and was sentenced to 22 years in prison, the records show.
Another client of Irvin’s was Enrique Prado, convicted of concealing the 2013 homicidal death of 18-year-old Abigail Villalpando, court records show. Villalpando, described by relatives and co-workers as a hardworking teenager who aspired to become a cop, was beaten with a hammer, doused with gasoline and set on fire. An arson charge against Prado was later dropped.
Prado pleaded guilty to helping one man dispose of Villalpando’s body after another man killed her and was sentenced to two years in prison, records show.
Irvin’s law firm partner was Reginald Campbell, now a Kane County judge. In 2009, Campbell represented Gary Martin, who later committed the worst mass shooting in Aurora history, over two restraining orders filed by an ex-girlfriend.
Irvin was Aurora’s mayor in 2019 when Martin opened fire at the Henry Pratt Co. plant in Aurora, killing five people and wounding six others, five of them police officers, before being shot and killed by police.
In an interview, Campbell said he doesn’t recall much about his work for Martin other than that he was a referral to the firm. He said Irvin did not have any involvement with the cases involving Martin.
“A lot of our business was through word-of-mouth,” Campbell said. “We handled hundreds if not thousands of cases like this.”
When the Tribune asked questions about the case, the campaign sent out a news release accusing the paper of having “the intention of writing a misleading story attempting to connect Richard Irvin to a 2008/2009 court case in which he had no involvement.”
Irvin campaign spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis described Campbell as Irvin’s partner but said the two attorneys did not have a profit-sharing agreement. They shared an office and split overhead expenses, Demertzis said.
The campaign did not answer specific questions sent in writing about Irvin’s career as a criminal defense attorney or why he has ignored it during his campaign.
Irvin has joined the other Republican candidates in blasting the sweeping criminal justice law Pritzker signed a year ago. In an interview after announcing his candidacy, Irvin contended the law led to increased outbreaks of violent crime and had a role in the deaths of eight law enforcement officers.
But many of the sweeping criminal justices changes that were part of the law, including a controversial end to cash bail, have yet to take effect, which Pritzker noted in response when he said that Irvin “doesn’t really understand the law.”
While voters are hearing little about Irvin’s time as a private attorney, his background on both sides of the justice should be considered an asset rather than a liability, said Robert Loeb, a veteran criminal defense attorney and a former Cook County assistant state’s attorney who also is a commissioner on the Illinois Torture Inquiry and Relief Commission.
“You don’t necessarily have a bias,” Loeb said. “You’re not a tool that’s insensitive one way or the other.”
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(Megan Jones reported from Aurora.)
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