The first Filipina judge in Cook County, Illinois, has been removed indefinitely from the bench after she was indicted earlier this month on federal mortgage fraud charges.
The announcement Wednesday from Chief Judge Timothy Evans’ office came a day after a panel of presiding judges chaired by Evans voted to reassign Circuit Judge Jessica O’Brien to administrative duties. Elected a judge in 2012, she most recently had presided over a small-claims courtroom.
As word of the reassignment came, O’Brien was in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse pleading not guilty at her arraignment to one count each of bank fraud and mail fraud affecting a financial institution.
Federal prosecutors asked that O’Brien post an unsecured bond of $100,000, saying she had substantial income and that preliminary calculations show she faced four to seven years in prison if convicted.
But U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheila Finnegan found that O’Brien did not pose a risk to flee and ordered her released on her own recognizance.
The indictment charged O’Brien with lying to lenders to obtain more than $1.4 million in mortgages on two South Side investment properties that she bought and sold between 2004 and 2007 while owning a real estate company. She was then also working as a special assistant attorney general for the Illinois Department of Revenue.
O’Brien, who is married to a judge, immigrated to the United States after high school, earning degrees in culinary arts and restaurant management, according to her online biographies. She then made a career change and went to John Marshall Law School, graduating in 1998 and later serving on its board.
She was the first Asian elected president of the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois and also served on the board of governors for the Illinois State Bar Association. The judge also co-founded a foundation in 2008 that awards scholarships to law students from diverse backgrounds.
While working for the Department of Revenue, O’Brien also owned a real estate company and worked part time as a loan officer for a Lincolnwood business, federal prosecutors say. Her co-defendant, Maria Bartko, also worked at Amronbanc Mortgage Corp. as a loan originator.
In August 2004, O’Brien applied for a mortgage on a property in the 600 block of West 46th Street, falsely stating that she made $6,800 a month as an attorney with the Department of Revenue and omitting the $260,000 she and Bartko owed on another property they had purchased, according to the charges.
A little over a year later, O’Brien refinanced mortgages on that property and another she bought a month later in the 800 block of West 54th Street, falsely stating she made $20,000 a month at her realty company, O’Brien Realty LLC.
In 2006 she applied for a commercial line of credit to pay expenses on the two properties, falsely stating that her realty company made a $100,000 annual profit, the charges say. A year later, O’Brien decided to sell the properties to Bartko.
The future judge allegedly paid Bartko and a straw buyer to purchase the two properties, according to the charges.
