Former Chicago Cop Lied, Forged Tickets To Avoid Citations: Prosecutor

CHICAGO — A former Chicago police officer faces felony and perjury charges after prosecutors say he used fraudulent paperwork and testimony at hearings to get out to tickets by claiming that his vehicle had been stolen.

Jeffrey Kriv avoided paying 44 tickets totaling more than $3,600 tied to his personal vehicle between 2009 and 2022 while working as a Chicago police officer, investigators found. Kriv faces four felony counts of perjury and five counts of forgery after an investigation was conducted by the City of Chicago Office Of Inspector General and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.

The Inspector General's Office was contacted in Feb. 2022 about a "potentially fraudulent" ticket involving Kriv, court documents show.

Kriv, 56, reportedly used forged police reports to get out of paying four other tickets and also claimed that his BMW had been stolen by a former girlfriend who was responsible for the tickets, according to court documents. When Kriv appeared in court regarding the tickets, prosecutors say he used a fraudulent police report indicating that his former girlfriend had stolen the vehicle and was driving the car when the ticket was issued.

Officials discovered that the four police reports while being dated with four different dates, appeared to be almost identical in nature, according to court documents.

In another instance, court documents indicate that Kriv used a ticket reportedly signed by "Officer D. Stuart" to try to prove he had been issued a ticket twice for the same offense within 15 minutes of one another. As part of the proof, prosecutors say Kriv included a badge number for officer Stuart that issued the ticket. However, when investigators looked into the matter, they discovered the badge number listed for the officer matched that on Kriv's badge, documents show.

Prosecutors said that Kriv successfully disputed numerous parking tickets and moving violations “by providing fraudulent documents as evidence and/or making false statements” at hearings while under oath.

Kriv retired from the Chicago Police Department on Jan. 20, 10 days after he was stripped of his police powers in connection with the ticket investigation, officials said.

“The truthfulness and credibility of police officers is foundational to the fair administration of justice, and to CPD’s effectiveness as a law enforcement agency,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said in a news release.

Kriv was released on Tuesday on a 10,000 I-Bond, authorities said, and is scheduled to return to court on Feb. 23 on the charges.