West Cook News

Lyons Village President Chris Getty — despite apparently being targeted in a federal investigation — appears to have easily raced to a fourth-term, netting 70% of the vote Tuesday night in his battle against challenger Richard Gatz Jr.

Not long ago, back in 2019, Getty saw his private insurance office and space in Village Hall raided by federal agents as part of a still unwinding corruption probe which Gatz sought to make a primary issue throughout the campaign.

At one point, Gatz publicly declared he was running “because of all the corruption going on.”

While a federal grand jury continues to weigh evidence in the case, none of that seems to have stood in Getty’s way in carving out a path for him to remain in power.

With all the precincts reporting late Tuesday, Getty had more than doubled the vote tally accumulated by Gatz.

The raid two years ago on Getty’s locations came just days after federal agents swooped in to conduct searches on the home and office of then-state Sen. Martin Sandovol. It remains unclear if the investigations are related, though reports have highlighted that Sandoval, Getty, and then-McCook Mayor and Cook County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski were all political allies who had contributed to each other’s campaigns for elected office.

Getty has not been charged with anything and denies any wrongdoing, but according to reports he has already spent somewhere in the neighborhood of nearly $100,000 on legal bills stemming from the probe.