Cook County Circuit Judge Removed For Lying On Mortgage Application About Residence

The Illinois Courts Commission removed Cook Co. Circuit Court Judge Beatriz Santiago from the bench based on an accusation she lied on a mortgage application about her place of residence. Santiago resides in a home owned by her parents, according to the allegation, but claimed on mortgage documents as her principal residence a home outside her Sixth Judicial Subcircuit where she is required to maintain a residence. According to the complaint, Santiago lied on a refinancing of a home she owns on North Spaulding Avenue in 2013 in order to obtain a lower interest rate when she actually lived in the home owned by her parents.

The Chicago Tribune says Santiago, a former public defender, was elected to the bench in 2012. A citizen filed a complaint against her prior to the 2012 primary election contesting her eligibility. She acknowledged living at the North Spaulding address at one time, but she testified to election officials she had moved into the home owned by her parents in 2011 to establish residency in the Sixth Judicial Subcircuit. Yet two years later when she applied to refinance the mortgage on her North Spaulding home, she claimed it was her primary residence. Santiago told mortgage brokers during her 2013 mortgage refinance that the home owned by her parents was a former home. Did Santiago also commit vote fraud by claiming a voting residence in a precinct in which she did not reside? Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.