By Illinois Review
On Friday, a Lake County Judge has ordered Illinois-based publishing company Local Government Information Services (LGIS) to remove sensitive voter data from their websites that was illegally published and includes the names and home addresses of police officers, domestic violence and human trafficking victims, by 5:00 pm Monday.
LGIS publishes content for a select group of conservative political candidates – information oftentimes submitted by the candidate and not a reporter and published in newspapers to make it appear as if the information is coming from a reliable and legitimate news source. Publications such as the “Chicago City Wire,” the “Will County Gazette” and the “DuPage Policy Journal” are all owned and operated by LGIS.
In 2016, Dan Proft – now a Florida-based Chicago radio show host, launched LGIS – an Illinois-based for-profit publication company at the same time he was running the Liberty Principles PAC – and as records reveal, would use the money from his own PAC to pay his own publication company to write favorable stories about candidates he was supporting. In 2019, Proft shut down the PAC – which was funded by billionaire Richard Uihlein who had donated nearly $18 million. In 2016, the Illinois State Board of Elections found illegal coordination between the PAC and the political candidates that they were supporting.
In 2020, Proft transitioned day-to-day operations of LGIS over to his best friend and business partner Brian Timpone, who now serves as LGIS’ president. In 2012, Timpone was forced to shut down his company Journatic LLC just three months into his partnership with the Chicago Tribune after the Tribune’s partnership with Timpone became “an embarrassment after ethical breaches, including false bylines, plagiarism and fake quotations, were discovered.”
In 2022, Proft launched the People Who Play By The Rules PAC, and during the 2022 Illinois gubernatorial campaign, Uihlein donated $42 million to Proft’s PAC to support Republican Darren Bailey’s campaign for governor. Bailey would go on and lose the governor’s race by 12 points to incumbent Gov. JB Pritzker.
And just last month, on April 29th, Proft appeared before an Illinois State Board of Elections hearing officer, as lawyers discussed whether or not his PAC – People Who Play By The Rules, was illegally coordinating with Darren Bailey’s campaign when he was running for Illinois governor in 2022. Bailey campaign officials, including Bailey – are not friends with Proft, or even acquaintances, but the campaign was in need of money from Uihlein who was funding Proft’s PAC. PAC’s must remain independent and they cannot coordinate with campaigns that they are supporting financially.
But as it was revealed in April, just one day after Bailey’s primary election victory, Proft – at Timpone and Jeanne Ives’ urging, requested to meet with Bailey and his campaign manager in a backroom of a Chicago Country Club where he slid over an envelope that he said contained $20 million. And like a scene out of a movie, Proft said Bailey could deposit the check if Bailey would hand control of the campaign over to him.
As the shocking story continues, Bailey refused to hand the reins over to Proft and offered him an advisory role instead. But Proft declined the offer saying that – as reported by Crain’s – “that Uihlein’s money would follow him” and not Bailey. After being denied, an angry Proft then told Bailey that he needed to fire his entire campaign team and then hurled expletives at Bailey’s campaign manager who was sitting across the table.
On Friday, a Lake County Judge ordered Timpone to remove personal information of voters that LGIS published illegally that disclosed the names and home addresses of hundreds of thousands of individuals including police officers, domestic abuse and human trafficking victims – making the point that the disclosures put the individuals in danger and open them up to identity theft. So far, Timpone has refused to remove the information, but the judge’s order now forces his hand to scrub his websites of the data by 5:00 pm on Monday.
Voter data is only available to political organizations like the Liberty Principles PAC and the People Who Play By The Rules PAC – and sharing that data with non-political organizations like LGIS and publishing it is against Illinois law. On Thursday, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul – just a day before the judge’s ruling, filed a lawsuit against LGIS for illegally publishing the personal information of voters.
It still remains unclear how LGIS obtained that voter data, but the violation is a felony. And according to various news reports, neither Proft or Timpone could be reached for comment on Friday.
**Update as of 10:15 am CDT on May 15, 2024: According to The State Journal-Register, LGIS removed some of the personal voter information, but not all of it, per the Court Order. The Attorney General’s office is currently reviewing the changes.
