A city of Chicago employee has been accused of sending a pair of threatening emails to a northwest Illinois state lawmaker and told a police investigator that he had been “angry a lot lately, especially about politics,” authorities said.
Joseph Haggerty, 59, of Chicago, was charged with two felony counts of threatening a public official after authorities said he sent the emails in September to state Sen. Andrew Chesney, a conservative Republican from Freeport. The Illinois State Police, which conducted the investigation, announced the charges Tuesday. Haggerty remained in the custody of Stephenson County authorities, police said.
The charges come amid growing concerns from Democrats and Republicans nationwide that public officials and politicians running for office have increasingly become the subjects of violence and threats.
According to a police report obtained by the Tribune, Illinois State Police allege Haggerty sent two threatening emails within a minute of each other to Chesney’s government email address on Sept. 2.
The first email from Haggerty stated he would “love to meet” the senator “on the street anywhere” and explained how he “would cave your f−−−−−− teeth in and make you sip your food through a straw for the rest of you dumb −−−hole coward life.” The second email called Chesney “spineless” and contained another threat and insults.
The following day, Chesney told a state police investigator that he didn’t know Haggerty and thought Haggerty might have been responding to an interview the senator did on WLS-Ch. 7 hours before the emails were sent to him.
In that interview for a story about Republican President Donald Trump’s then-plans to send National Guard members to Chicago, Chesney accused Gov. JB Pritzker, Mayor Brandon Johnson and other Illinois Democrats of fostering a “pro-crime, a pro-criminal environment.”
The state police investigator said in the police report that Chesney told him, in politics, “he can always expect that some may disagree with him and communicate that, but Haggerty’s emails were very different from what he normally receives when people disagree with his political stances.”
During the investigation, Haggerty told state police he “vaguely remembered” emailing Chesney but did not remember specifically what he was angry about.
“Haggerty admitted to being angry a lot lately, especially about politics, and that he believed it was likely his anger that got the best of him, resulting in an email to Chesney,” according to the report. “Even though Haggerty only vaguely remembered sending Andrew Chesney an email, he definitely remembered that he did not intend to hurt anyone, including Andrew Chesney.”
In the report, Haggerty is identified as a city of Chicago employee who works as an “Inspector.” City records show an employee with the same name works as an inspector for the Buildings Department and has an annual salary of $133,431.96.
In a statement Tuesday, Chesney said, “It is deeply troubling that an inspector for the City of Chicago issued violent threats against a sitting public official, and such conduct must be met with the seriousness it deserves.”
A spokesperson for the city’s Buildings Department did not address the charges but said the department expects employees “to perform their duties as public servants with respect and impartiality — regardless of political affiliation or background” and that the department expects employees to “condemn any violence or intimidation that undermines our ability to deliver for all Chicagoans.”
State police learned by combing through Haggerty’s computer data that after sending Chesney the emails, he conducted computerized searches for terms such as “heavy duty water balloons” and “rapid fire” or “fully automatic” paintball guns.
Days later, a state police investigator said in the report, Haggerty searched about this year’s slayings of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and Melissa Hortman, the former Democratic speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, “but based on the real-world events occurring that day, I think that search activity would be considered normal for most Google users in the USA.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/25/illinois-senator-chesney-threats-charges/
