Coroner Candidate Fired for Selling Beer Outside Theater

WAUKEGAN, IL - A retired Waukegan police officer who is running for Lake County Coroner was recently fired from his post as deputy coroner, but a longtime community activist is calling for him to be arrested as well over a September incident at the city’s Genesee Theatre.

The Lake County Coroner’s Office confirmed this week that Michael Donnenwirth, a 30-year Waukegan police officer who is challenging incumbent Coroner Dr. Thomas Rudd in the March 2016 Democratic primary, no longer works for the Coroner’s office, according to the Lake County News-Sun. Donnenwirth allegedly used foul language to berate a theater employee and sold alcohol outside the theater while drinking during a Raphie May comedy show on Sept. 10.

“As a deputy coroner, you are a public official and when you are out in public - whether on the clock or not - you need to be held to a higher standard,” said Clyde McLemore, a community activist from Zion who heads the Black Lives Matter Movement of Lake County. “People forget he (Donnenwirth) was on the police force for 30 years, and now he conducts himself belligerently at the theater?”

McLemore told Patch during a phone interview Friday “anyone else would have been arrested” for Donnenwirth’s actions that night, which, according to McLemore, are more serious than what Donnenwirth has admitted to.

Donnenwirth admitted to the News-Sun he did complain about the price of a drink at the theater that night, stating he ordered three drinks and the bill came to $48.

“It was just a statement I made about the price of a drink,” he said. “There was no malice or anything. (All) I said was ‘the prices are bull----, and this is crazy.’ It wasn’t menacing at all.”

He also didn’t deny selling beer outside the theater, claiming there was a power outage in Waukegan that night and that some attendees were left outside for a long period of time without anything to drink.

“I just said to one of my buddies, ‘Why don’t we get a case of beer?’” he told the News-Sun, adding that others shared in the cost of the purchase. “Granted, it was probably not a good thing to do, but people came up and said, ‘Hey, how about a beer?’ (so) I sold maybe eight or 10.”

But McLemore claims information he obtained through a FOIA request shows that it was Donnenwirth’s son who went to buy the beer, and that they were selling it for “$2 a can” outside.

“For a public servant to stand outside our community theater and sell beer for $2 a can...that should be a felony,” McLemore said. “But the manager didn’t call police and the Mayor supported him. If it were anyone else, they would be sitting in jail fighting this. And now he wants to run for coroner?”

Acting the way he did outside the theater also irked McLemore, who says the venue is one of the “treasures of Waukegan.”

“If he can’t go there and support it, he shouldn’t go there.”

Janet Gibson, Genesee Theatre general manager, addressed the events from the night in question with the Waukegan City Council earlier this week. McLemore was the first to bring it up with the governing body during a public comment session at the meeting prior.

Gibson confirmed that an incident took place that night involving “a citizen (who) sold beer outside the theater” and “used offensive language directed at my bar manager,” the News-Sun reported. Gibson noted the matter was handled in-house and police were not called.

Donnenwirth told the News-Sun he suspects the entire situation was only made public by information given to McLemore by Rudd, his opponent in the March election. This is something McLemore vehemently denies.

McLemore said he heard about the incident from another public official who witnessed Donnenwirth’s behavior that night and that he obtained a letter written to the coroner’s office from that official about it through a Freedom of Information Act request.

“FOIA requests are usually returned in five days, but I had to go through Dr. Rudd’s office and did not receive the information for nearly three weeks because they kept sending it to the wrong address,” McLemore said, stating it was another public official who informed him of what happened and not Rudd.

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