Former U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock loved the good life — from trips on private planes to skybox seats for Chicago Bears games to posh office furnishings. He once had a $5,000 chandelier installed in his government office where, as a rising Republican star, he supposedly conducted the people’s business.
What he liked less, according to federal prosecutors, was opening his own wallet.
In a sweeping 24-count grand jury indictment handed up Thursday in Springfield, prosecutors lay out in gripping detail charges accusing Schock of using House and campaign funds to support his lavish, jet-setting lifestyle.
The alleged crimes — theft of government funds, fraud, making false statements and filing false tax returns — began soon after Schock first entered the House of Representatives in 2008 and continued after he resigned last year.
The indictment marks a stunning turn in Schock’s political life.
Schock, 35, a precocious politician elected to the Peoria school board as a teenager, was the first House member born in the 1980s. He was seen as a darling of the Republican Party and had taken on crucial political fundraising roles.
He now faces nine counts of wire fraud, one count of mail fraud, one count of theft of government funds, two counts of making false statements, five counts of filing false reports with federal election officials and six counts of filing false tax returns.
James Lewis, the U.S. attorney in Springfield, said in a statement that Schock abused his office.
“These charges allege that Mr. Schock deliberately and repeatedly violated federal law, to his personal and financial advantage,” Lewis said. “Mr. Schock held public office at the time of the alleged offenses, but public office does not exempt him or anyone else from accountability for alleged intentional misuse of public funds and campaign funds.”
Schock and his lawyer suggested that the prosecution was politically motivated. Schock said he made honest mistakes and that no one intended to break the law. He also alluded to the email scandal that enveloped Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign.
“I am forced to join millions of other Americans who have sadly concluded that our federal justice system is broken and too often driven by politics instead of facts,” Schock said in a statement. “Unlike some politicians, I did not delete any emails, nor did my staff smash or destroy any electronic devices.”
George Terwilliger, Schock’s Washington-based lawyer, said the government criminalized administrative mistakes and that by announcing charges days after an election, the indictment “has all the appearances of a politically calculated ambush.”
The 52-page indictment portrays Schock as treating government and campaign funds as a personal piggy bank — opulently decorating his office, buying a staffer a new car, handing out excessive bonuses, paying for travel to get a haircut and traveling on a private airplane to get to a Bears game.
In November 2014, Schock was presented with an opportunity that most Chicago football fans can only dream of. He was given a handful of free tickets for him and his guests to sit in a Soldier Field skybox to watch the Bears play. He invited others, including two staff members.
Under House rules, Schock would have to pay for his travel, meals and lodging for the Bears outing — but he didn’t, according to the indictment.
He hired a private pilot to fly the group from Peoria to Chicago and back. Schock used his government travel card to pay more than $1,200 for the flight and for the pilot’s meals. He used one of his political funds, Schock Victory Committee, to pay about $1,800 in hotel and restaurant expenses for the group “as if they were legitimate campaign expenses,” according to the indictment.
The indictment does not identify who gave the free skybox tickets to Schock, how many tickets he was given or who traveled with him.
Shock, who authorities said made money as a ticket broker prior to entering Congress, also had an appetite for buying and reselling tickets to sporting events, according to the indictment. From 2009 through 2013, the government noted that Schock bought and sold 46 World Series tickets and eight Super Bowl tickets, earning a total profit of $22,425.
The indictment, however, alleges that Schock did not use his own money but rather campaign funds when he bought tickets to the 2014 and 2015 Super Bowls. He made a profit of $30,000 and covered up his actions by filing official campaign reports stating that the ticket deals were political fundraising events, according to the indictment.
Schock “repeatedly used the services of a private airplane and helicopter and private pilot at a much greater cost rather than fly on a commercial airline,” the indictment said. “He then paid for the cost of these trips, including personal trips, with federal funds or campaign funds or not at all.”
In August 2013, Schock was preparing for a vacation overseas but was in danger of missing a connecting flight. The indictment states that Schock took a private flight from Peoria to Washington, D.C., at a cost of more than $8,000. He allegedly used campaign funds to pay for it, “even though the expense was purely personal and for his own convenience.”
The indictment also alleges Schock personally profited from his annual “fly in” event, to which constituents travel to Washington to attend meetings with political leaders. Schock charged a fee for the two-day event.
According to the indictment, Schock had a friend open a bank account in Florida under the fictitious name of Global Travel International, where the extra event fees were deposited. In September 2011, Schock paid himself about $4,500 from the account, the indictment states. He closed the account three years later.
Prosecutors allege that Schock handed out excessive bonuses to Congressional and campaign staff, in one instance directing a $6,000 bonus to his chief of staff, with whom he had lived. At the time, Schock owed the chief of staff rent money, the indictment states.
Even after he resigned from Congress, according to the indictment, Schock continued to use campaign funds for personal travel, hotels, meals and other noncampaign expenses.
Schock, prosecutors allege, used campaign funds to attend the American Country Music awards show in April 2015 in Dallas — less than a month after he had resigned.
The indictment accuses him of lying about how many miles he drove for official House business and for campaign work — fraudulently obtaining nearly $140,000 in mileage reimbursement; fraudulently being reimbursed for about $30,000 in camera equipment for his personal use; and using campaign dollars in 2014 to buy one of his House staffers a Ford Fusion, “knowing that it would be used for few, if any, campaign events.”
Some of Schock’s alleged behavior bordered on the bizarre.
He accused a former staffer in 2013 of improperly accessing a friend’s social media account. Schock, according to the indictment, claimed that Capitol police and the FBI had launched a criminal investigation.
That prompted the former staffer to hire a lawyer and to rack up $10,000 in legal bills, which were paid for by the staffer’s father. The indictment states that Schock later admitted he lied about a criminal investigation and, when confronted, reimbursed the father $7,500.
Schock, however, was not out of money for long. Within weeks, according to the indictment, Schock took money from one of his political funds and repaid himself. He allegedly claimed in official finance reports that the $7,500 expense was related to campaign legal fees.
He had his Rayburn Building office furnished and redecorated at a cost of about $40,000, including a $5,000 chandelier — uncommon moves for a lawmaker who cast himself a fiscal conservative and alarmed about the national debt.
In November 2014, he brought on an Illinois decorator, who earlier had decorated Schock’s Peoria apartment and his previous office in the Cannon Building, the indictment said.
Schock had vouchers and claims submitted to the House totaling $25,000 to be paid to the decorator. At the time, he falsely said the claims were “for services to assist the member in setting up our district and DC offices” including “using materials from our district and rearranging/designing/structuring the space to best suit the member and staff’s needs.”
Schock had his three campaign committees pay an additional $8,263 for carpentry, paint, and travel and lodging expenses for the decorator, who gave no products or services to the committees, the indictment said.
The decorator is not named in the indictment, but she has acknowledged her work for Schock in news articles. Annie Brahler is with EuroTrash in Jacksonville, Ill.
“I have no comment,” Brahler said Thursday.
Schock also is accused of filing false federal income tax returns for tax years 2010 through 2015. That involved the failure to report additional income he received, the prosecutor said.
One of the allegations against Schock involved having the government and his campaign treasuries reimburse him for about 150,000 miles more than his vehicles were driven.
Then there’s Schock’s use of a personal photographer/videographer. He stands accused of having the House pay that person, also a congressional and campaign staffer for Schock, for $29,000 in camera equipment, used by Schock and Capitol Hill and campaign aides.
The expense was reported as “multimedia services” — and false invoices were dummied up. The staffer was reimbursed, then made “direct payments to Schock’s personal credit card for the camera equipment purchase,” the indictment said.
Schock is to make his first court appearance Nov. 21 before Federal Judge Sue E. Myerscough in Springfield to be arraigned.
Schock’s primary residence remains in Peoria, according to Mark Hubbard, a spokesman for Terwilliger’s law firm.
The spokesman said he did not know the firm where Schock now is employed, saying the ex-congressman travels and works for a commercial real estate firm.
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