The Hon. Kwame Raoul
Illinois Attorney General
500 South Second Street
Springfield, IL 62701
Dear Mr. Raoul:
I'm writing regarding your office's 12+ year investigation of a tainted nonprofit, the Chicago-area Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF). SALF, which from 2006-2020 has been the subject of dozens of media exposes, was dissolved as an Illinois corporation in 2009.
SALF was founded in 1993 by the late Carol Jean Spizzirri, a convicted shoplifter and child batterer, according to an order of protection filed in 1992 by her daughter, Christina Jean Pratt. To perpetrate the SALF scam, Spizzirri falsely claimed to be a registered nurse and relentlessly promoted a fabricated backstory about Christina's tragic 1993 death.
SALF reportedly received over $10 million in tax dollars and what I estimate to be tens of thousands of dollars in private grants. Based on media reports and my estimates, about $7 million came from Illinois state taxpayers (including $200,000 to buy an office building in Springfield) and over $3 million came from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the first million of which was arranged by U.S. Senator Dick Durbin in 1999.
To obtain the funding, SALF claimed the money would be used to provide training in CPR and the Heimlich maneuver to students in Illinois schools.
In 2009, Spizzirri told the Chicago Tribune her organization trained about two million students in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS), then-headed by future U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan who called Spizzirri “one of my heroes.” As documented on my web site, Duncan personally arranged a $174,000 contract for SALF to provide first aid training classes for 18,000 CPS students from 2004-06.
However, in response to my FOIA requests, CPS failed to produce a single training record. Further, in 2003 your agency awarded $25,000 to SALF to provide first aid training to students in these schools:
Salem School District #111 (Marion County)
South Central Community Unit School District #401 (Kinmundy, Marion County)
Camp Point CU School District #3
Beardstown CU School District #15
Rantoul City School District #137 (Champaign County)
Cass County School Districts (Cass County)
Edwardsville CU School District #7
Greenview CU School District #200
Per IL Senator Tim Bivins' 2012 emails to then-IL Attorney General Lisa Madigan (which include thorough documentation), none of the eight schools had records of any training.
In a 2015 interview, Senator Bivens said, "(SALF) claimed they had trained thousands and thousands of children...We can't substantiate that all of these children were trained."
As you may know, in approximately June 2010, your office initiated an investigation into SALF. According to a 2010 IL Public Radio report, "The Illinois Attorney General's office confirms it is reviewing how the funds were used, as is done whenever a charitable organization disbands."
To learn the outcome of the investigation, every six months or so, I file FOIA requests with your agency, asking for related records.
In an August 15, 2022 response to my most recent FOIA request, Assistant Attorney General Mark Rogina wrote: "(This office has reviewed) its records, and we determined that approximately 10,000 pages of records are maintained only in physical, hard copy form."
Based on the volume of documents, he suggested I narrow my request. I did so, resubmitted it, and received this August 22, 2022 response from Mr. Rogina:
Please be advised that because this investigation remains ongoing, we have no records responsive to your request.
It's unclear why it's taking your office over 12 years to investigate a long-defunct, thoroughly-discredited organization. Still, I hope you agree that the public is entitled to learn what happened to the millions of misappropriated tax dollars.
With that hope in mind, this is to respectfully request that you initiate a review to determine if the investigation of SALF has been conducted properly.
This is also to respectfully request that you provide me with the name of the staff member leading the SALF investigation and an approximate date when the investigation will be completed. I appreciate your consideration and I look forward to your reply.
Sincerely,
Peter M. Heimlich
Peachtree Corners, GA 30096 USAphone/text: (678)322-7984
email: peter.heimlich@gmail.com
website: http://medfraud.info
blog: http://the-sidebar.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/medfraud_pmh
bio: http://tinyurl.com/ych7o7dr
