Republican Will County Board member Steve Balich says he is relieved after Democrat Will County Board member Jackie Traynere was found guilty of two counts of misdemeanor computer tampering, but he also raised concerns about the lack of broader accountability.
“I didn’t expect her to get convicted because when she’s involved, she finds a way to win a lot of it,” Balich told the Will County Gazette. “This time, she got convicted and she got what she deserves.”
Traynere was convicted Monday, March 9, of two misdemeanor counts for unlawfully accessing the email account of Republican board member Judy Ogalla and acquitted on a third count for forwarding emails. The charges stemmed from a March 6, 2024 incident in which she used a shared county-issued password to access Ogalla’s account.
“Judy was a chair at the time and she was saying that there were a number of times that people swore that someone had to be a bug in her office because they knew stuff that nobody should know,” Balich said. “When I say they, it’s whoever Jackie gave the emails to and more than likely it was Jennifer [Bertino-Tarrant].”
Judge Derek Ewanic of Will County issued the verdict after Traynere waived her right to a jury trial. Ewanic concluded she did not realize she was still in Ogalla’s account when forwarding emails to herself and Democrat County Executive Jennifer Bertino-Tarrant, leading to the not-guilty finding on the third count.
“She says it was innocent and she didn’t mean to do it and it wasn’t on purpose and all these terms like that,” Balich said. “Bottom line is she had to write in the computer ‘Judy Ogala at Will County Illinois dot com.’ If she didn’t write that in, it didn’t matter. How could she get in? Even if she had the password she couldn’t get into Judy’s stuff. So it was blatant.”
Republican Will County Board member Steve Balich celebrated Jackie Traynere’s conviction, calling it deserved and raising concerns about accountability and county IT security. (Steve Balich)
Balich, who was Republican leader on the county board at the time of Traynere’s criminal conduct, said Traynere’s cyber breach raised personal concerns about his own devices and the county’s IT system, recalling his own experiences with technical issues at the time.
“I thought that I was being tampered with too,” he said. “We had iPads. My iPad was fine for a number of years and all of a sudden it wouldn’t work right. There would be missing stuff, so I kept thinking that someone was hacking me. Then Judy got the evidence.”
Balich said county IT protocols don’t make sense.
“The initial problem is that why on earth would our IT department give everybody the same email password?” he said. “It’s totally stupid. They’re not idiots. They know better.”
Balich said the incident prompted a full review of county technology and password protocols, which he said led to new security measures.
“Right after the incident, all this stuff happened,” he said. “We ended up getting new iPads and new email addresses.”
Traynere’s conviction comes as she faces another pending case.
In March 2025, she was accused of hit and run collision involving a child on a bicycle.
“Nothing happened to her for the hit and run with the kid,” he said. “If you hit a kid on a bike with your car and then you took off and a couple hours later you went to the police station, they’d lock you up. She’s walking around with no problem.”
He added broader concerns about accountability.
“She’s done two things that I know of—the hit and run and the cybercrime—but I don’t know how many times she was doing the cyber crime,” Balich said. “She only got caught for Judy’s part. How many times did she go into mine? How many times did she go into other people’s accounts? We don’t know.”
Despite the convictions and the pending case, Traynere remains on the ballot for reelection to the Will County Board and was recently endorsed by Bertino-Tarrant. Bertino-Tarrant called her “a strong voice for Bolingbrook” and a “no-nonsense” board member willing to handle difficult issues and defend Democratic values.
“She’s a Democrat leader or was a Democrat leader,” he said. “They give her a break because, let’s face it, our county is controlled by Democrats.”
Traynere is scheduled to be sentenced on April 7, 2026, the same date and time as the jury trial for the hit-and-run case.
Balich said he hopes the conviction affects her political future.
“If she’s going to pay something, she’s going to have some kind of fine,” he said. “It could be a lot of money, but it’s going to be a fine and she’s going to have that baggage of the conviction. I hope that’s enough to make it so she can’t get reelected. She’s definitely not my person, I should say.”
