Will County Gazette

The Edgar County Watchdogs (ECW) are calling DuPage Trustee Maripat Oliver a “hypocrite” for her ongoing -- and proven baseless -- allegations of criminal activity by her colleague, Trustee Alyssia Benford, and they are insisting that she resign.

 “We urge Trustee Oliver to resign as it is clear her entire focus as a trustee is not about doing the people’s business but rather perpetuating attacks against the one trustee (Benford) that has been willing to expose the real truth,” wrote ECW’s Kirk Allen in an update of its investigation into corruption in the township.

Benford, a certified public accountant, had exposed irregularities in township books, which she initially uncovered in the spring of 2018, while William Mayer was the township supervisor. Mayer, a former political ally of Oliver’s, resigned a year ago under pressure from ECW’s investigations into unauthorized expenditures from township accounts, illegal advances in salary, and conflicts of interest.

Alyssia Benford

Now, Allen is reporting that a criminal investigation has begun into Mayer. Among other damning evidence against Mayer, Allen cited the existence of an affidavit that indicated Mayer lied about receiving income from Call One, a vendor of the township’s, while he was the supervisor.

“Neither Call One nor Mayer have been willing to provide answers to our questions on this matter,” Allen wrote. “We suspect the truth will come out as the criminal investigation moves forward. Whether through a subpoena or a search warrant as part of the criminal investigation, we are confident the paper trail is more accurate than the statements from Bill Mayer.”

For her part, Oliver has claimed for months about having knowledge of a criminal complaint against a fellow trustee but never produced evidence backing the claims.

For an earlier story, Benford told the Will County Gazette that she learned through a Facebook post that the complaints against her consisted of destroying township documents and identify theft.

But a month ago, the watchdogs learned that investigators found the complaints completely without merit.

In a communication obtained by ECW, a detective with the Bolingbrook Police Department wrote that an assistant State’s Attorney told him nothing supports the allegations of criminality in the complaints. The detective also wrote that the State’s Attorney’s office has “deemed a no complaint status for both.”

Oliver and Mayer became allies after she and Benford had a falling out last year over what Benford believed to be resistance by some on the board to fund a local youth football team, the Bolingbrook Buccaneers, predominately made up African-American coaches and players.

“Trustee Oliver has told me in the past that people will refer to me as a ‘coon’ and an Uncle Tom if I ran for another office as a member of the Republican Party," Benford said in a statement at the time. "Trustee Oliver also serves on the Children and Family Services Review Board for the State of Illinois. It concerns me that someone with her limited views of race relations would be serving as an elected official or as a governor appointee to a board that protects minors.”