Fire Judge John J. Fleming and jail Anthony Abbate immediately

Nothing is more disgusting in Chicago than the lack of justice

By Ray Hanania

Had Anthony Abbate been Black, he would have had the book thrown at him. But Anthony Abbate is an arrogant fat pig of a Chicago cop who was caught on tape in a drunken stuper beating the crap out of a young female bartender. I don’t mean “fat” as just some kind of pejorative adjective, although that certainly hangs easily around Abbate’s dirt bag neck.

At 250 pounds, he’s overweight and that only added to the disgusting video scene as he pummeled, pounded, beat, kicked and dragged mercilessly the 125-pound Karolina Obrycka as she tended bar where she was working in February 2007 and where Abbate was drinking himself into an alcoholic stupor.

What provoked Abbate. Turns out he was beating up people at the bar before he turned his fat fists on Obrycka. But when she refused to serve him more drinks because of his conduct and the disturbance he had caused, fat dirt-bag cop Anthony Abbate turned himself into the poster child for everything ugly about the Chicago Police Department and the hypocrisy that protects those who embrace corruption and misconduct regularly.

Sure enough, leave it to a judgment bankrupt and ethically questioned Cook County Circuit Court Judge like John J. Fleming to find a flimsy excuse to justify giving Abbate leniency. Fleming comes from the same culture of corruption that produces cops like Abbate.

A 12-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department, Abbate was off-duty during the altercation but that is baloney. No cops are ever off-duty. They’re always working. They always have the responsibility to step up in any circumstance and throw their weight around.

What is so disturbing about the fat dirt-bag cop Anthony Abbate isn’t the circumstances of this morally corrupt situation, but the silence of the thousands of good Chicago cops and suburban cops, too, who deep down sympathized with Abbate and their stupid “code of silence.”

Abbate, to many of them, was a hero because Obrycka, who has a heavy accent, has been labeled and slandered and defamed on cop-talk blogs and in the halls of police station gossip as an undocumented, illegal alien who can barely speak English.

Instead of throwing that fat dirt-bag cop in to jail, Cook County Circuit Judge John Fleming gave the 40-year-old Anthony Abbate, a slap on the hand: home curfew of 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. and 130 hours of “community service.”

Who is this Fleming? Here’s his bio from one of those legal web sites:

Legal Experience: 1980-83, assistant general attorney, Chicago Park District (in house counsel); 1983-91, assistant state's attorney, Cook County (traffic 4th Municipal District and Felony Trial Divisions); 1991-94, deputy general attorney, Chicago Park District (supervise the Litigation Division); 1994-1995, ALJ, City of Chicago (Personnel and Parking departments); 1996-1996, Director of Administrative Adjudication, City of Chicago.

Judicial Experience: Judge Fleming was first elected to the bench in November of 1996. He was originally assigned to the 1st Municipal District of the Circuit Court of Cook County. He served in Traffic Court, Domestic Violence and Misdemeanor sections. He is currently assigned to Felony preliminary hearings and Central Bond Court at the Criminal Courts Building.

He has the “culture of corruption” stamp padded all over him.

Fleming, naturally defended his kindered colleague in this state’s rampant culture of corruption, asserting that he didn't see any “aggravating factors” to justify a prison term. Fleming incredulously argued that Abbate did not “seriously injure” the Obrycka, the hero in this sad Chicago saga.

Abbate beat the woman for nearly a half hour! What do you think Fleming would have done if the victim had been his child?

And, Fleming insisted after allowing this trial to be delayed two full years – something judges do when they want to help reduce the burden on the criminals they favor – that Abbate had a “clean record before the incident,” and that he had underwent “alcohol rehab and has not had a relapse” since entering the program.

Is it because Abbate’s past conduct has not been captured on tape as it was that night in that Chicago bar? Had it not been for the bar’s video tape system, Abbate would have gotten off without the worthless conviction handed down in Fleming’s unjust courtroom.

“If I believed sentencing Anthony Abbate to prison would stop people from getting drunk and hitting people, I'd give him the maximum sentence,” Fleming said.

Are you kidding me?

The only thing more disgusting about Abbate’s being given a pass is the moral bankruptcy of Judge Fleming’s ruling.

Fleming is a Circuit Court Judge. He was “first elected” to the bench in 1996. That means he can be removed from the bench. And, he should be removed as soon as possible.

Finally, every decent American citizen in the realm of this injustice by Fleming and Abbate has to ask out loud, Where are the voices of disgust from the Chicago Police Department and police departments throughout? Their silence is deafening and just as shameful, too.

END