Report: Irvin Promised to Have Charges Against Girlfriend "Taken Care Of"
Aurora Mayor and GOP candidate for Governor Richard Irvin at a Chicago Tribune Editorial Board meeting this week in Chicago.
“Promised to get rid of charges against his girlfriend arrested for assault on a pot shop security guard” is not the headline the Irvin campaign was hoping for.
More from the Chicago Tribune:
Aurora Mayor Richard Irvin, who is now running for Illinois governor, arrived last year at the scene of an arrest by Aurora police in which his then-girlfriend was accused of hitting a security guard at a marijuana store.
The charges against her “would be taken care of,” a police officer overheard him say, according to a police report of the incident obtained by the Aurora Beacon-News and Chicago Tribune. She was charged with an ordinance violation for battery, a minor municipal charge.
Irvin disputes the characterization of his comments that were included in the police report and that it might have implied he used his influence as mayor to affect the charges against his then-girlfriend, Laura Ayala-Clarke, saying that was “actually incorrect.”
The report lays out in detail what happened, according to police.
Ayala-Clarke went to the store to buy cannabis products and needed to get $100 from an ATM that was inside the store. When the ATM didn’t work, she became frustrated, the report states, and when she complained to store employees they told her to contact the business that runs the ATM. Ayala-Clarke said she would not leave until her boyfriend, Irvin, arrived, according to the report.
After Ayala-Clarke refused for an hour to leave, a security guard told police that she attempted to grab Ayala-Clarke’s right arm to get her to leave but that Ayala-Clarke kicked the security guard in the leg and struck her in the abdomen before the guard pepper sprayed Ayala-Clarke in the face, according to the report.
The whole story is not conducive to a former prosecutor tough guy image his campaign is presenting.