Former state panelist gives up
Brooks turns himself in after indictment for two felonies
By JAYETTE BOLINSKI
STAFF WRITER

Published Thursday, December 15, 2005

A former state Prisoner Review Board member indicted by a Lee County grand jury last week for his involvement in the highly publicized case of a reputed Chicago mob hit man turned himself in in Springfield on Tuesday.

Victor E. Brooks, who was indicted Friday, had been traveling, and he and his attorney made arrangements for Brooks to turn himself in to the Illinois State Police at the Sangamon County Jail, said Melissa Merz, spokeswoman for the Illinois attorney general's office. He posted cash for bail and was released after being fingerprinted and photographed.

Brooks, of Batavia, was wanted on a $100,000 warrant for official misconduct and wire fraud, both felonies.

According to the indictment, Brooks, a former prison warden, agreed to vote in favor of paroling Harry Aleman in exchange for help getting Brooks' son a job as an entertainer in Las Vegas. That help allegedly was going to come from Ron Matrisciano, a high-ranking prison official who took the unusual step of testifying in favor of paroling Aleman during a hearing at Dixon Correctional Center in Lee County in December 2002.

Aleman was charged in 1972 with murdering a Teamsters official. He was acquitted in 1977, but it later was determined that the judge in the case had been bribed. He was tried again, convicted in 1997 and is serving 100 to 300 years in prison.

Matrisciano also was indicted in Lee County last week on four counts of misconduct and two counts of wire fraud.

In addition, he's charged with perjury in Sangamon County for allegedly lying during a February deposition. Matrisciano testified that he did not appear at Aleman's parole hearing in his official capacity as an assistant deputy director at the Illinois Department of Corrections, according to the attorney general's office.

Sangamon County Associate Circuit Judge Robert Hall signed that indictment Monday.

"How Harry Aleman had access to a high-ranking IDOC official and why a member of the (Prisoner Review Board) would vote for his release are serious questions that have been raised," Attorney General Lisa Madigan said in a statement issued Friday. "We allege that public corruption is part of the answer."