Bogus Bond

Chicago Police detective Joseph Frugoli was drunk behind the wheel of his Lexus SUV, just before 4am Saturday morning, when he struck a Dodge in the break down lanes near 18th street, on the Dan Ryan expressway.

He killed the two passengers in the Dodge, driver Andrew Cazares and passenger Fausto Manzera. They were both in their early twenties, so they were just kids.

Kids.

It is reported that his blood-alcohol was 3 times the legal limit, which means that it was at least 0.24.

Pretty drunk.

He was charged, thank Allah, with two counts of reckless homicide, two counts of driving under the influence and one count of leaving the scene of an accident (that's right, he tried to split.)

Currently, and shamefully, he is free on $50,000 bond.

Turns out that this so-called officer of the law has had a few other, um, fender benders. Just last week, Frugoli had to pay $7100 to a guy named Joseph Cairo for a 2005 accident, also on the Dan Ryan.

Also a rear-end job.

Also early in the morning, around 3 am.

Also a nice car (BMW Sedan).

Interestingly (not really), alcohol was seemingly a non-factor. The officer, in one of his accounts of what happened that morning (that's right, he gave multiple accounts) said that he was on his way to a bar at that time.

On his way.

Riiiiiight.

Only cost $7100 to get out of that one.

There was yet another accident that happened in January of last year, also in the Beamer, also in the wee hours of the morning. This time, though, the accident was not on the expressway. It seems that officer friendly ran a stop sign at 37th and Wallace. He hit a police car and injured two officers (a family affair). There was no "evidence" of intoxication, so Fugoli was only given a citation.

Interestingly, according to the April 11 Chicago Sun-Times, "The officers who responded to the crash were investigated for failing to tell their supervisors in a timely manner that an off-duty officer was involved in the crash, but they were cleared of wrongdoing, sources said."

Guess the booze wore off by the time a supervisor knew it was one of his/her bad kids involved in the wreck.

So, to review: 3 accidents in four years, 2 of them were from behind (it's how rogue cops seemingly like to dish it out), and 1 has alcohol officially involved.

He was also driving very nice, luxury vehicles, and has shelled out at least $57,100 (between his previous fine and his current bond) in the last week.

(Does this guy earn a typical cop salary?)

So what is there to say about this? Cops protect their own, which they've tried to do in the past for this guy. They were relatively successful up until now, but I would not be surprised that in the end, he'll get off relatively easily. That's how it works here in Chicago.

As of this writing, his first hearing had already been postponed until May, of course, so he's free as a bird right now.

Figures.

Luckily, his police powers have been stripped.

So it goes...