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Complaint: She lied to panel of attorneys about prostitution By JILLIAN DUCHNOWSKI jduchnowski@shawmedia.com
Monica Maschak - mmaschak@shawmedia.com
Sycamore Sign Company’s Keith Fabrizius and Ed Richter take signs down from Johnny’s Charhouse on May 14. INSIDE: The Sycamore City Council approved a commercial center variance Monday. PAGE A3
Plans underway for Johnny’s, other Sycamore locations By DAVID THOMAS dthomas@shawmedia.com SYCAMORE – The former Johnny’s Charhouse building won’t remain empty for long. At least, that’s the prediction from Ralph Crafton, a real estate broker with Hoffman Realty who was involved with Johnny’s Charhouse since it opened 15 years ago. He said he’s discussing the future of the building at 1950 DeKalb Ave. with potential tenants. “Decisions are being made this week to see how this will be divided up,” Crafton said. “I fully expect a viable business to be in there by the end of the year.” Mike Carpenter, a real estate broker for RVG Milner/Carpenter, said he is also talking with several prospects about that site. The RVG website lists Johnny’s Charhouse as being available for lease at $18 a square foot. With a 7,500-squarefoot building, the annual rent would be $135,000. It would also include flat-screen TVs, walk-in coolers and the decorations and furnishings. The restaurant closed May 12, but the
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We’re seeing a lot of properties that haven’t had successful uses in a number of years turning the corner. Brian Gregory City manager
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hole it left along one of Sycamore’s busiest commercial corridors hasn’t dimmed local leaders’ economic outlook. City Manager Brian Gregory said several properties are attracting attention from potential developers and businesses. “We’re seeing a lot of properties that haven’t had successful uses in a number of years turning the corner,” Gregory said. On Monday, the Sycamore City Council approved a measure to allow Shorewood Development Group of Buffalo Grove to demolish the old Kish Corner Family Restaurant at 2496 DeKalb Ave.
The restaurant closed in early 2012. “That’s about a $3.2 million investment in that property, which is welcome news,” Gregory said. The location will become the new home of Physicians Urgent Care, a clinic currently located at 1985 DeKalb Ave., said Louis Schriber, Shorewood Development Group’s founding partner. The majority of the 10,200-square-foot building will be dedicated to the clinic, with the rest of it housing small retail spaces and quick-serve restaurants. Meanwhile, the DeKalb County Economic Development Corporation’s listings of available commercial and industrial spaces throughout the county include mostly office buildings for Sycamore. Carpenter said the supply of office space is higher than normal. “The economy still has been soft,” he said. “We haven’t seen as many new businesses or new jobs being created again.” Carpenter said it is difficult to compare the inventory on the market in 2013 to the inventory on the market when
A 27-year-old attorney accused of exchanging sex for money and office supplies is facing an ethics hearing after an investigator claimed she lied about it. Reema “Nicki” Bajaj pleaded guilty last year to misdemeanor prostitution for a single incident in August 2010, which happened before she became an attorney in November 2010. She dissolved her Maple Park law practice last month, court records show. Bajaj is serving two years of court supervision, and recently filed a lawsuit claiming then-DeKalb County State’s Attorney Clay Campbell and her former defense attorney showed other local attorneys nude photos of her obtained through the criminal investigation. Attorneys from Konicek & Dillon, who represent Bajaj in the ethics case, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. Amanda Adams, a DeKalb lawyer representing Bajaj in the civil lawsuit, declined to comment. But last month, a panel of two lawyers and one nonlawyer found there was enough evidence to file ethics charges against her through the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission. She faces a hearing before a nine-member review board and punishments including a reprimand, suspension or disbarment. The ethics complaint alleges Bajaj met two men through the website Adult Friend Finder, where she identified herself as Nikita. One paid her $200 after meeting her for sex at a DeKalb hotel in 2005, and then met her for sex about 25 times over the next five years, paying her $100 for each meeting, the complaint alleges. She allegedly met the second man in a store parking lot, where he paid her $25 for performing a sex act in 2007,
Reema “Nicki” Bajaj is facing an ethics hearing after an investigation found she allegedly lied about exchanging sex for money. Bajaj pleaded guilty last year to misdemeanor prostitution for a single incident in August 2010, which happened before she became an attorney in November 2010. She dissolved her Maple Park law practice last month, court records show.
See COMMERCIAL, page A8 See BAJAJ, page A8
Police can collect DNA from arrestees, Supreme Court says By JESSE J. HOLLAND The Associated Press WASHINGTON – A sharply divided Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for police to take a DNA swab from anyone they arrest for a serious crime, endorsing a practice now followed by more than half the states as well as the federal government. The justices differed strikingly on how big a step that was. “Taking and analyzing a cheek swab of the arrestee DNA is, like fingerprinting and photographing, a legit-
imate police booking procedure that is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court’s five-justice majority. The ruling backed a Maryland law allowing DNA swabbing of people arrested for serious crimes. But the four dissenting justices said the court was allowing a major change in police powers, with conservative Justice Antonin Scalia predicting the limitation to “serious” crimes would not last. “Make no mistake about it: Because of today’s decision, your DNA can be taken and entered into a national data-
Alonzo Jay King Jr.
Anthony Kennedy
base if you are ever arrested, rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason,” Scalia said in a sharp dissent which he read aloud in the courtroom. “This will solve some extra crimes, to be sure. But so would taking your DNA when you fly on an airplane – surely the TSA must know the ‘identity’ of the flying public. For
that matter, so would taking your children’s DNA when they start public school.” Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler agreed that there’s nothing stopping his state from expanding DNA collection from those arrested for serious crimes to those arrested for lesser ones like shoplifting. “I don’t advocate expanding the crimes for which you take DNA, but the legal analysis would be the same,” Gansler said. “The reason why Maryland chooses to only take DNA of violent criminals is that you’re more likely to get a hit on a previous case.
Shoplifters don’t leave DNA behind, rapists do, and so you’re much more likely to get the hit in a rape case.” Twenty-eight states and the federal government now take DNA swabs after arrests. But a Maryland court said it was illegal for that state to take Alonzo King’s DNA without approval from a judge, ruling that King had “a sufficiently weighty and reasonable expectation of privacy against warrantless, suspicionless searches” under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. The high court’s decision reverses that ruling and rein-
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states King’s rape conviction, which came after police took his DNA during an unrelated arrest. Kennedy, who is often considered the court’s swing vote, wrote the decision along with conservative-leaning Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. They were joined by liberal-leaning Justice Stephen Breyer, while the dissenters were the conservative-leaning Scalia and liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
See COURT, page A8
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