On Monday in Dolton, Illinois, a meeting to talk about accusations of corruption and wasteful spending against scandal-plagued “supermajor” Tiffany Henyard turned into chaos as people who backed and opposed her fought with each other.
The fight happened in the small town south of Chicago after the trustees of Dolton voted 4-2 to bring back former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to investigate Henyard. Henyard is accused of using village funds as her piggy bank by going on a fancy trip to Las Vegas and billing taxpayers for thousands of dollars for her hair and makeup team.
As Henyard and the trustees left the room, police broke up the fight that was getting dangerous.
Lightfoot was hired by the town to look into Henyard, but the mayor of Dolton, who had said before, “God chose me,” stopped the move. Henyard had also turned down the board’s earlier request to start a federal probe into her alleged spending and money management problems.
During the meeting, Lightfoot said, “We are not going to let anyone stop us or get in the way of our ability to get to the facts.” However, Henyard and the trustees kept talking over her, as reported by Fox 32 Chicago. Something else that was said was that Lightfoot’s microphone was off while she tried to talk.
The incident came at the end of more than two hours of heated debate in which village residents dragged Henyard to court to air their complaints, criticizing her for not being open about how village funds are spent.
A resident named Thelma Gant talked about a different FBI investigation and said, “You won’t understand until they come and put cuffs on you.”
Fox 32 says that Henyard looked down and seemed to ignore most of the people who were commenting.
After the event, Henyard said that all the trouble was caused by the media and what she sees as a political witch hunt.
Henyard spoke into her golden microphone, “You guys are following a lie, a made-up story.”
A report from NBC Chicago says that Lightfoot has continued to work on the study but has not yet been paid for it. The news source said that her study should be over in sixty days. At first, Lightfoot was supposed to get $400 an hour, but Henyard had said she wouldn’t get paid.
About 21,500 people live in the small town, but Henyard has made it famous across the country. People who live in Dolton have already asked Henyard to step down and been arrested.
Earlier in the day, the village closed off the street in front of Village Hall, so people had to park a block away and walk.
“You made the elderly and the disabled walk here,” he said. “I hope you’re proud of yourself, Tiffany Henyard.”
Critics have called Henyard the “worst mayor in America” because they say he stole money and used police raids as weapons. Recently, she has also been criticized for an alleged sexual assault by one of her friends during the trip to Las Vegas. The alleged victim says she was fired after coming out, which is why she is being criticized. There are also questions about Henyard’s cancer charity.
According to an earlier report from Fox News Digital, Henyard has been living like a royal with a combined salary of nearly $300,000, which is more than the state’s governor, and she often hires beauty vendors, even though the average income in the town is only $24,000.
As part of a probe, the FBI gave out two federal subpoenas in April. No food was brought to Henyard.
That first one was for employment records, personnel files, and disciplinary reports for 25 Dolton workers. That list included three police officers and Keith Freeman, who runs the village and is Henyard’s main assistant. Freeman was charged with cheating on his bank account.
Freeman was served with the second subpoena, which asked for records of all companies that were connected to him and may have ties to the village.
The FBI was said to be looking into Henyard in February after six people, including “business owners, a former village employee, and one or more public officials,” told the agency about her alleged wrongdoing.
Last month, Dolton’s board of directors chose a mayor pro tempore to handle village business and pay bills. They did this because Henyard had missed 25 special meetings and wouldn’t let some things be put on the agenda for the normal meetings.
Henyard has used racial politics to defend herself in the past, telling a group of people, “You all have false stories out there, and you should all be ashamed of yourselves.” You are all Black, you all are Black! At the same time, you all sit here and attack and beat up a powerful Black woman. “Each of you should feel bad about yourself.”
Later, Lightfoot put out a statement telling Henyard that she should help her with her research.
“I commend the Village of Dolton Board of Trustees for decisively exercising their authority to override Mayor Henyard’s veto and preventing any attempts to stall an independent investigation into the matters outlined in the resolution,” the statement says, partly.
“They understand that village residents deserve a transparent and thorough process.”
