Aaron Schock was indicted in 2016 on 24 felony counts alleging that he fleeced taxpayers and campaign donors through false expense claims. | Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times via AP Congress Aaron Schock strikes deal to have corruption case dropped The disgraced Illinois Republican will not be required to admit to doing anything wrong.

In a stunning reversal, the Justice Department dropped its corruption case against former Rep. Aaron Schock on Wednesday, agreeing to a settlement that would leave him with no criminal conviction if he pays $110,000 in restitution and taxes and stays out of legal trouble for six months.

The unusual deal — under which Schock will not admit any criminal offense but his campaign committee will plead guilty to a misdemeanor — was struck after the Justice Department transferred the case out of the original prosecutor’s office in Springfield, Ill., and sent it to other prosecutors in Chicago.


Schock (R-Ill.) was indicted in 2016 on 24 felony counts alleging that he fleeced taxpayers and campaign donors through false expense claims, including inflated mileage reimbursements, personal travel expenses and camera gear — and by using campaign funds to buy Super Bowl tickets that he sold online.

He resigned in 2015 over the scandal.

Schock’s lawyers insisted that the federal indictment was a colossal overreach and errant expenses were the result of sloppy bookkeeping. Schock’s lawyers also repeatedly complained about conduct of the prosecutor who handled the case.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, Joe Fitzpatrick, defended the agreement resolving the case, which was set to go to trial in June.

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“We believe this agreement provides a sensible resolution. It’s a just result and provides the necessary public accountability,” Fitzpatrick said.

Fitzpatrick declined to comment on whether the deal was approved by Justice Department officials in Washington and at what level. A DOJ spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on that issue.

As part of the agreement, Schock made limited concessions to the court, including that “at times his actions or inaction may have caused his campaign committees and the House to pay expenses that Schock knew or should have known were not properly charged to those entities.”

The former congressman also acknowledged that he regularly submitted mileage vouchers without documentation of how many miles he had driven and admitted to making more than $42,000 on sales of event tickets that he never reported on his income taxes.

Schock issued a statement offering limited contrition over the events and insisting that the agreement a judge approved Wednesday demonstrates that the criminal case was meritless.

“This case has dragged on for more than four years and I am ready to put this behind me and move forward,” he said. “I have stated consistently and constantly that mistakes were made in the handling of my campaign and congressional offices, and I have acknowledged responsibility for that — but mistakes are not crimes. I have learned from this experience. The outcome validates this case should have never been started in the first place.”

Schock said the new prosecution team was more reasonable than the original one, but he continued to decry the original decision to charge him.

“I am thankful to the Illinois Northern District U.S. Attorney’s office because, in the end, they have reviewed the merits of this case and have done the right thing,” he said. “But I continue to ask where was the oversight and supervision when my indictment was initiated. It should not have taken four years, two U.S. Attorneys’ offices, three judges and millions of dollars in costs to the taxpayers and myself to come to this conclusion. … This case should never have gone this far or this long.”

Schock’s lead counsel, George Terwilliger, also praised the Chicago prosecutors for their handling of the case after it was reassigned to them late last year.

“We knew all along if we got this case in front of reasonable prosecutors, it would not stand up. The vast majority of federal prosecutors do the right thing for the right reasons — this was the wrong case for the wrong reasons,” Terwilliger said. “People should take heart that honest prosecutors acting responsibly here in Chicago did what they promised: They gave the case an objective fresh look. They have concluded the case need not, and should not, be pursued.”

Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said he’s “disappointed that Aaron Schock will seemingly face minimal personal accountability for his ethical misconduct and illegal activity, including his blatant personal use of campaign funds."

