Judge’s Foe Sent Notes to Officials

The man authorities have said killed Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow’s husband and mother also sent hostile, puzzling letters to state and federal officials six years ago, sparking an investigation by the Illinois attorney general’s office.

Former state investigators visited Bart Ross’ home in the Chicago neighborhood of Albany Park in 1999 and began building a file on him.

It included notes that Ross sent to then-Atty. Gen. James Ryan and other government officials, said Dan Curry, who was Ryan’s press secretary.

Some of the notes used inflammatory language and underscored Ross’ anger at the government and judicial system. Others simply rambled.

Ross, 57, an unemployed electrician, shot himself to death during a traffic stop outside Milwaukee last week.

He was linked by DNA traces and suicide notes to the Feb. 28 Lefkow murders.

In September, the judge dismissed Ross’ billion-dollar lawsuit, which alleged that a group of doctors at the University of Illinois-Chicago Hospital had disfigured his face and throat during cancer treatments.

After Ross committed suicide, Curry said, he received a call from the executive security detail, which guards state officials such as the attorney general, the governor and the secretary of state.

“They told me that they had some contact with [Ross], and that it was threatening to the attorney general and other people,” said Curry, who runs a political consulting business in Wheaton, Ill.

“They basically considered him as someone to keep an eye on,” he said. “There was no direct threat of violence, but there was a lot of inflammatory language and erratic-type statements.”

Curry did not know which other officials received letters from Ross.

Officials from the executive security detail could not be reached for comment Monday.

Ross also sent packages of court and other material to various government officials, including Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.).

In June, a Durbin spokesman said, Ross walked into the senator’s offices in Chicago and dropped off a thick binder filled with files from his court cases.