A former Chicago sergeant was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in prison for stealing more than $1 million in union dues to help pay for his lavish lifestyle.
Now-suspended police Sgt. John Pallohusky, 56, used the money to pay off a half dozen credit cards, take trips to Las Vegas and make the down payment on a second home in the city's Sauganash neighborhood, prosecutors said.
"Mr. Pallohusky, it doesn’t get much lower than stealing from your fellow officers of the Chicago Police Department," Cook County Judge Diane Gordon Cannon told Pallohusky.
Pallohusky offered a "sincere apology to the association I was part of... for what I may have done."
He pleaded guilty in April without any deal with prosecutors on a recommended sentence. He faced as much as 15 years in prison.
Pallohusky's attorneys asked Cannon for probation so he could pay back the union but Cannon turned down the request.
"Anytime a police officer commits a crime it is disappointment to all of us and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," said Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez. "What made this crime that much more bold and deplorable is the fact that this defendant was willing to steal from his fellow officers."