South Side Ald. Lamont Robinson’s campaign and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s 4th Ward Democratic Organization are on the hook for $1.475 million in punitive damages over what a Cook County jury found were defamatory mailers and text messages during the 2023 aldermanic campaign.
Ebony Lucas, a real estate attorney who lost in the first round of the aldermanic elections in the ward that includes Hyde Park, filed suit in December 2023 over what she described as a “coordinated smear campaign” alleging she had a series of unpaid liens and fines related to her business and violations of the city’s landlord tenant ordinance.
Preckwinkle’s organization paid for three mailers alleging Lucas was a “bad landlord,” who “can’t manage her own business” and “doesn’t care about doing the right thing.”
At the time, Preckwinkle defended the mailers. “They were carefully footnoted, so lots of luck to her,” she told reporters in March 2023.
One of those liens, Lucas’ suit claimed, was in error and she was released from it in 2021. She “never” incurred court fines for ordinance violations, nor contractor liens, her suit said.
Lucas was cleared of another allegation cited in the mailers, that she had “falsely obtained access” to a condo association’s bank account. That complaint, made to the state’s licensing agency for attorneys and reported by the Tribune in 2017, was dismissed months later. Lucas is active and authorized to practice by the state’s Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
Not a normal outcome for a lying during political campaigns.
