Former Assessor’s Office Staffer Pleads Guilty to Tax Scheme

A former employee of Cook County Assessor’s Office has pleaded guilty to helping businesses lower their property taxes in exchange for free golf outings.

Basilio Clausen, who worked as a field inspector, partook in a scheme that illegally lowered tax bills for certain commercial properties by more than $150,000 from 2017 to 2019, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

While Clausen faces a maximum of five years in prison, he has formally agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, likely resulting in a lighter sentence.

The illicit scheme involving Clausen unfolded in 2017 during Joseph Berrios’ tenure as Cook County assessor. Two other former assessor’s office staffers, Lumni Likovski and Lavdim Memisovski, were also charged with conspiracy in April, along with Fence Masters founder Robert Mitziga. Memisovski pleaded guilty last year and he, too, is cooperating with prosecutors.

The indictment alleges that Mitziga and an unidentified individual offered Clausen and other Cook County employees two free golf outings at a club in Bridgman, Michigan. In exchange, they were expected to lower tax assessments for a Chicago Heights property linked to Fence Masters and a property in Dolton owned by the unnamed person, the newspaper reported.

Property assessments play a crucial role in determining property tax bills, and assessors are typically randomly assigned properties. But Clausen, Likovski and Memisovski agreed to sidestep this process by directing the properties in question to Memisovski.

Working to reduce property tax assessments is a big business in Cook County. But the law firms that specialize in the practice — including those headed by some of Illinois’ most politically connected attorneys who wipe away billions of dollars in assessed value to save large landlords on tax payments — do so through a formal process that challenges the assessor’s valuations with the Cook County Board of Review or the statewide Property Tax Appeal Board.

It was previously reported that after a second golf outing, officials agreed to reduce Mitziga’s assessment by nearly $28,000 and the unidentified individual’s by about $53,000. However, U.S. Attorney Richard Rothblatt on Tuesday disclosed that the scheme resulted in a combined reduction of over $150,000 in property taxes.

Clausen’s sentencing will be determined after his cooperation with prosecutors is complete.

— Quinn Donoghue