Ex-gang member reinstated to state prison job gets $99,000 in back pay

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

A former gang member with a lengthy arrest history has been awarded nearly $99,000 in back pay after an arbitrator reversed his firing and returned him to a six-figure job with the Illinois state prison system, records show.

Xadrian R. McCraven, a senior adviser with the Illinois Department of Corrections, was fired by then-Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration in early 2014 after a series of Chicago Sun-Times stories that detailed McCraven’s rocky state employment history, including his 2012 firing from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

Records show DCFS had fired McCraven for “writing and responding to hundreds of lewd and inappropriate emails” while at work. But under a 2013 settlement, Quinn’s administration reduced McCraven’s dismissal to a 10-day suspension and transferred him to the corrections department, which fired him on Jan. 6, 2014 — this time citing unspecified “inconsistencies” on state job applications McCraven had filed.

Now, new details about the case are emerging in arbitration documents the Sun-Times obtained this week from Gov. Bruce Rauner’s administration under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.

The sad, sick world of Illinois.