Forgeries On Elmhurst Politician's Petition?

ELMHURST, IL – Some Elmhurst residents say someone falsely included their signatures on the petition for mayoral candidate Mark Mulliner.

Mulliner, a former six-term alderman on Elmhurst's southwest side, has not returned Patch's repeated messages since last week.

The questionable signatures are on four pages of Mulliner's 72-page petition. Addison resident Lawrence Moretti, a Republican precinct committeeman from Addison Township, gathered the signatures on those pages.

In the last week, Patch left messages with 14 households whose signatures were in question.

At seven addresses, residents said no one in their houses signed Mulliner's petition.

The residents live in the 300 and 400 blocks of South Arlington Avenue, the 500 and 600 blocks of South Fairfield Avenue, the 400 block of South Berkley Avenue, the 600 block of South Cedar Avenue and the 300 block of East Church Avenue.

Resident Raymond Capek, who was among those who said his signature was falsely included, said he would be willing to testify to that fact.

"I never signed a petition for anyone," Capek said in an interview. "It's a forgery."

Seven households did not respond to Patch's inquiries. None of the residents responded that they did sign.

The deadline to challenge Mulliner's petition has passed.

In an interview, Mayor Scott Levin, Mulliner's opponent, said his rival had enough signatures to run for mayor without the ones in question.

"When you look at those four pages, you see the obvious impropriety," Levin said.

Levin said Moretti has been around politics long enough to know how petitions are done.

"Everyone knows it's not legal. It's a forgery. You're forging someone's signature," the mayor said. "We don't do it that way in Elmhurst. The perjured nature of the petition is so obvious on the face that they shouldn't have been included. Mulliner didn't need them. Including them was bad judgment."

The four pages were much different from the other 68. All the signatures on the four pages were illegible, while that was only the case with some on the other pages.

The signatures on Moretti's pages were typically angled scribbles.

On the four pages, the handwritten addresses for two residents on Eggleston Avenue were misspelled "Eggelston." And the street name for a resident on Berkley Avenue was misspelled "Berkeley," like the neighboring suburb.

On the other 68 pages, most residents chose to fill out the optional column for printing their names. But on Moretti's pages, not one of the 40 alleged signers did so.

Moretti's pages were notarized by his wife, Pamela Moretti, Addison Township's elected clerk.

Patch left a message Monday with Moretti at a phone number listed on the White Pages website. A message was also left on his wife's government email account. They were unreturned.

In the 2021 mayoral election. Levin prevailed with 41 percent of the vote to Alderman's Michael Bram's 34 percent and Mulliner's 25 percent.

Two years later, Mulliner narrowly lost his re-election bid for alderman to political newcomer Rex Irby.

After his victory, Irby told Patch that residents had asked him to run because of their frustrations with Mulliner's involvement with Elmhurst Parents for Integrity in Curriculum, a conservative group that formed during the pandemic.

Its members contended critical race theory and Marxism were influencing Elmhurst School District 205's curriculum, calling out teachers by name.

In 2022, Mulliner, a former District 205 technology official, took heat for managing the group's Facebook page. He later left that role.

In his 2021 campaign, Mulliner encountered controversy when he accepted a $5,000 contribution from a group of residents opposed to a restaurant's parking lot plan.

At the time, Levin criticized Mulliner for taking money related to an issue that would come before a city committee to which Mulliner belonged. That gave an appearance of impropriety, Levin said.

For a time, Mulliner himself was silent on the controversy, relying on a public relations professional.

But following days of criticism, he emailed Patch a statement after giving back the $5,000.

"Never ever was there any implication of a quid pro quo," Mulliner said. "Let me be clear, I never took a position on their issue and still haven’t."

In 2010, Moretti caused a stir near an election polling place in Addison when he wore a hat reading "ICE," the acronym for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, according to the Daily Herald.

Democrats accused Moretti of trying to intimidate voters in a heavily Hispanic area, the newspaper said. He was a credentialed Republican Party poll watcher.