A husband and wife accused of lying about the profits of their gun shop and ability to pay their overhead on pandemic-related relief fund loan applications are on trial this week, but prosecutors in Illinois dropped several charges against the pair at the last moment.
The Will County State’s Attorney decided shortly before the trial began on Monday that Jeffery Regnier, who owned Kee Firearms and Training, and his wife Greta Keranen, who runs Kee Construction, should no longer be charged with theft by deception and burglary, though the prosecutor declined to say why the office was taking that somewhat unusual step.
We’ve written about this couple and their legal woes before; most recently in February when the pair sued Will County officials and the Secret Service over the seizure of four vehicles and an investment account with more than $5 million in funds, which the couple claim were not part of a search warrant related to a 2023 investigation into alleged money laundering.
Regnier has said the investigation stemmed from a $750,000 cash deposit he made to his bank; money he claims was the result of the spike in gun sales during the COVID pandemic. The couple originally faced 29 felony charges for fraud and theft of COVID-19 relief funds, but when the trial started on Monday prosecutors were only pursuing a single count of forgery against Regnier and Keranen, as well as two counts of loan fraud and wire fraud filed solely against Keranen (though the couple also face another batch of charges, including money laundering, that are still pending trial).
As for the vehicles and cash seized by police as part of their investigation, Will County Judge Jennifer Lynch issued a ruling in July requiring those assets to be returned to the couple.
The defendants’ attorneys argued this ruling should be considered in the current trial.
[Judge Amy] Bertani-Tomczak said Monday she did not see how it was irrelevant and called the state’s arguments “convoluted.”
… Bertani-Tomczak ruled Monday the business owners’ 2023 tax returns can only be used in a limited way. Prosecutors said the returns would shed light on the question and planned to call Paul Yaras from the Illinois Department of Revenue to describe the numbers in the tax returns.
But the defendants’ attorneys argued they did not receive the documents, which included hundreds of pages, until less than a week before the trial, not giving them enough time to review them.
I don’t know enough about the case to have an opinion on the guilt or innocence of Regnier and Keranen, but I’ve been less than impressed with the actions of the Will County authorities every time there’s been a new development in their prosecution. As early as December 2023, a Will County judge vented his frustration about prosecutors not turning evidence over to the defendants for nearly ten months after charges were filed.
[Will County Judge David]
Carlson asked Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Michael Casson why there was a delay in delivering the materials, specifically the grand jury transcripts because they were prepared May 22.
“This evidence in this case, the electronic evidence, there are seven to eight terabytes,” Casson said.
Casson called the delay for grand jury transcripts an “oversight.”
Pointing to the two Secret Service agents in the courtroom, Carlson said he was ready to scold them for the delay in the case. In a previous hearing, Carlson said he understood the agents were not cooperating, but it turns out that wasn’t true.
“I feel a little bamboozled because it was presented that the Secret Service weren’t giving documents but, it turns out, you had them,” Carlson said.
Carlson continued the case until Jan. 8.
“Once again, we’ve accomplished nothing,” Carlson said.
Well, if nothing else the prosecution has accomplished the closure of Kee Firearms and Training, as well as costing the couple a small fortune in attorneys’ fees. Again, I have no idea whether Regnier and Keranen are guilty of any crime, but there’s a clear case to be made that the prosecution has been railroading the defendants for several years now.
According to the Chicago Tribune, the bench trial is expected to last “a few days”, so we could learn Judge Bertani-Tomczak’s decision by the end of the week. From everything I’ve seen it doesn’t look like the county has much of a case, but we’ll see if the prosecution does a better job in presenting its evidence than it did in turning that evidence over to the defense.
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