Convicted Cop-Killer's Release Is Subject Of Pritzker, Super PAC Ads

CHICAGO — After a political action committee produced campaign advertisements featuring a family member of a slain Chicago police officer criticizing Gov. J.B. Pritzker over a parole board decision, the governor's campaign struck back with its own television spot, claiming the ad is 100 percent false and linking it to his Republican opponent.

Jean Cabel, the niece of murdered Chicago Police Department Sgt. James Severin, is featured in television and radio advertisements paid for by People Who Play By The Rules PAC, a conservative PAC financed by Lake Forest billionaire Richard Uihlein.

Cabel blames Pritzker for the release of the man convicted of killing her uncle after it was approved by the Illinois Prisoner Review Board, whose members are appointed by the governor.

"For decades, Jean had the support of governors of both parties to keep her uncle's killer behind bars, until J.B. Pritzker," the ad's narrator says. Cabel continues, "My message to the governor would be 'shame on you.'" The television version of the ad then closes with the text, "punish Pritzker for releasing a cop killer."

The governor's campaign quickly responded with an ad that began airing Thursday night, according to a spokesperson for the conservative PAC.

"Darren Bailey and his allies [are] incessantly spreading myths and obvious falsehoods, and now this outrageous TV ad that should insult us all," says the narrator in Pritzker's ad.

The Pritzker campaign ad then labels the People Who Play By The Rules PAC ad as an "ad for Darren Bailey." As an independent expenditure committee, or Super PAC, the group can raise or spend unlimited amounts of money on campaign ads as long as it does not directly coordinate with campaigns.

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"The truth is, the governor can't parole anyone. The ad is 100 percent false," the Pritzker ad says. "An entire campaign trying to scare you. Darren Bailey: all lies, no solutions."

The JB for Governor ad offers no source when it flashes the text, "FACT: The ad is 100% false," but it does include a visual effect featuring the deletion of a headline of a March 2022 WLS-TV report in which Cabel says Pritzker has "blood on his hands."

At a press conference Friday convened by the PAC, Cabel said she was in an uncomfortable position to have to defend herself against a false accusation in a political ad.

"The truth is that Gov. Pritzker is directly responsible for the composition and integrity of his Prisoner Review Board," Cabel said in a prepared statement. "As a family member of a Chicago police officer who was killed in the line of duty in 1970, I have spent my entire adult life maintaining his honor and working tirelessly alongside with both families to keep two convicted cop killers in prison."

Johnny Veal, 69, and an older man were convicted of the murder of Severin and Officer Anthony Rizzato in 1970 at the Cabrini-Green housing complex, with a jury finding they shot the two officers with .30 caliber rifles as they walked across a baseball diamond.

Veal, who was 17 at the time, was sentenced to 100 to 199 years in state prison. In 2021, the Prisoner Review Board voted 8-4 to approve his release over the objections of the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation and Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx, who has since ended her office's practice of making parole recommendations, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

At a February 2021 hearing, Veal told the board he was innocent and that he had been beaten by police while being questioned, although Foxx said there was strong evidence against him and no evidence to suggest he was beaten, according to the Associated Press.

Board records show Veal obtained a GED, became a certified law clerk and was nine credits short of a bachelor's degree, according to the Chicago Tribune. And of the eight Prisoner Review Board members who voted for Veal's release, four of them were originally appointed by Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner.

At Friday's press conference, Cabel said the Pritzker-appointed parole board head had "berated" her ahead of the vote. And she noted that, at the time of Veal's hearing, more than half of the review board was unconfirmed by the Illinois Senate.

Earlier this year, Pritzker faced criticism from Republicans for withdrawing and reappointing review board members who failed to receive Senate confirmation with a statutory deadline.

"You had two Chicago police families that had the rug pulled out from underneath them, and it was something we'd never seen in over 40 years of working with governors, mayors, parole boards," Cabel said. "I think it indicates a direction that I'm very uncomfortable with, it doesn't really reflect well on victim's rights, and that's what we've all been doing all along is protecting victims, or trying to."