Officer Zilka, Sgt. Esqueda About To Start Work At City Hall

JOLIET, IL — Officer Erin Zilka and Sgt. Javier Esqueda, two members of the Joliet Police Department who have been on paid leave from their department for many months, will be returning to work in different temporary roles this week, according to Joliet City Manager Jim Capparelli.

Zilka spent nearly 16 months on paid leave from Joliet, while Esqueda has been getting paid a sergeant's salary to stay away from work for almost 10 months.

"I'm not going to have police officers collect paychecks for not working, so they're going to be doing business licenses," Capparelli told Joliet Patch's editor.

Capparelli said it's his understanding that one of them will be following up on business licenses on the east side of Joliet while the other officer will be handling business license matters for places on the west side of Joliet.

"They'll check on businesses to make sure they're getting their licenses and paying their fees," Capparelli said.

A former Shorewood police officer, Zilka has not worked for the city of Joliet since being involved in an off-duty wreck along Interstate 55 near Plainfield on Jan. 19, 2020. The crash killed her passenger, Charles Schauer, a member of the Berwyn Police Department.

Esqueda was considered a hero to many people around Joliet last summer when he came forward and drew attention to the controversial death of Black Joliet resident Eric Lurry. During an interview with CBS Chicago's investigative reporter Dave Savini, Esqueda accused fellow members of the Joliet Police Department of tampering with evidence in the Lurry case.

But by July 7, Joliet Police Chief Al Roechner stripped Esqueda of his police powers and put him on paid leave. By October, Roechner had four criminal charges filed against Esqueda, the whistleblower in a federal lawsuit filed by Nicole Lurry against the Joliet Police Department.

Now, sometime this week, major personnel changes are in store for both Zilka and Esqueda, according to Capparelli, who took over as Joliet's new permanent city manager in January. Days before he started, Roechner agreed to retire and the new chief of police Dawn Malec cleaned house and got rid of three of Roechner's deputy chiefs: Marc Reid, Darrell Gavin and Joe Rosado.

According to Capparelli, Esqueda and Zilka will be assigned to the city clerk's office, and they will be responsible for investigating business license fees and related issues across the city.

Capparelli said that Zilka and Esqueda will be performing a valuable task within Joliet City Hall in their new temporary roles as their criminal cases are still pending.

"They'll work out of City Hall," Capparelli emphasized. "We have businesses that are not registered (with the city). We're short (staff) to handle this, so this is a kind of a win-win."

In their temporary assignments, Zilka and Esqueda will be working under the direction of the City Clerk's Office. Joliet's City Clerk is Christa Desiderio, and her office oversees the business license regulations, Capparelli said.

As coronavirus restrictions continue to be lifted across Illinois, "businesses are back up, and we'll want to start collecting license fees," Capparelli said.

Zilka is still waiting to go to trial at the Will County Courthouse after being charged in December with two charges of aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol and one charge of driving under the influence of alcohol and controlled substances during her January 2020 wreck that killed her passenger.

Meanwhile, Esqueda's criminal charges are pending in nearby Kendall County.

Esqueda, a 28-year Joliet police veteran, served as a field training supervisor for newer officers. Last July, Esqueda told a Chicago television station that he began to suspect that fellow supervisors were tampering and or destroying evidence surrounding the controversial death of Eric Lurry, who ingested a bag of drugs inside the backseat of a Joliet police car. The officers involved in his drug arrest, Sgt. May, Lt. Jeremy Harrison, McCue and Officer Jose Tellez, were slow to summon a Joliet Fire Department ambulance to save Lurry's life as he was dying on Joliet Police Department property.

Instead, the four focused on trying to recover the drugs from his mouth as evidence.

Esqueda told a Chicago television station that one of the Joliet officers appears to deliberately tamper with a squad car's audio system in the Joliet police station parking lot on the afternoon of Jan. 28, 2020 just as Sgt. May slapped Lurry in the head and called him a bitch in the back seat of rookie officer McCue's squad car.

In an event, Capparelli told Joliet Patch said he has no concerns about bringing Zilka and Esqueda back to work for the city of Joliet, even if their temporary roles won't be within the Joliet Police Department.

"They're certainly not a threat to anybody and their cases are still pending," he said. "And there's a presumption of innocence. I'm mindful of the taxpayers' money."