Now making the north end of Monticello his temporary home is one Dwright Boone-Doty, a 22-year-old Chicago man and member of the notorious Black P. Stones gang.
If the name sounds familiar, you probably read about the grisly murder he’s accused of committing — the execution of a 9-year-old boy who authorities say Boone-Doty lured into an alley with the promise of treats, then killed, because the boy’s father had gang ties.
Also here: Thaddeus "TJ" Jimenez, 36, who made headlines in 2012 when the murder conviction he served 16 years for was vacated and he won a record $25 million in a wrongful-conviction lawsuit against the city of Chicago.
Police allege that he used his newfound wealth to lure recruits to the Simon City Royals gang with cash, guns and cars. Jiminez now stands accused of shooting a former Royal who wouldn’t rejoin the gang.
Boone-Doty and Jimenez are among 15 Cook County inmates who were housed at the Piatt County Jail last week as part of a special arrangement between corrections officials in Chicago and Monticello. It’s done for inmates’ own safety — particularly in high-profile cases like theirs — and it’s not unique to Piatt County.
Of the 100 Cook inmates behind bars in other counties last week, 48 were housed in Kankakee and another 37 at the Livingston County Jail in Pontiac.
For Piatt County, the presence of some of Chicagoland’s most infamous inmates helps keep the jail open.
The facility houses 15 Cook inmates on an average day and gets $50 from that county for each night one spends behind bars in Monticello.
It all adds up to about $360,000 a year, Piatt County Sheriff Dave Hunt said. Take out about $122,000 for non-personnel costs, such as food, and Piatt has plenty left to go toward the $550,000 in salaries of the jail’s 12 full-time employees.
Without the out-of-town guests, the jail’s employees would outnumber the inmates on a typical day, Hunt said.
Piatt’s 76-inmate jail was built anew in 2004, with the idea of it being used to house federal inmates, each worth $60 to $75 a day, and help pay the bills.
That never got anywhere. After a number of unsuccessful attempts — and in 2010, a change in sheriff — Hunt struck the deal with Cook County in 2012.
So far, so good, says Piatt County Board Chairman Randy Jo Keith.
"Dave has a done a wonderful job," he said. "It’s his call, and it’s his jail. It seems to be going well. I’m happy to have it, but it’s hard to count on it, because you never know if they’re gonna keep sending them to us."
Business remains brisk in Monticello but much has changed in other counties that once benefited financially from similar programs.
For years, Cook County’s lockup — the nation’s largest single-site jail, in its third-largest city — was overflowing with inmates. Daily populations often exceeded 11,000.
A concentrated effort to reduce that population has worked, and it’s now been more than two years since the jail had more than 9,000 inmates on a single day.
With fewer inmates, there is less need to ship some of them to outlying counties. Four area counties that once housed Cook inmates — DeWitt, Ford, Macon and Moultrie — now have none. They remain among 12 of the state’s 102 counties that still have arrangements with Cook, however.
"It’s not uncommon to only use a few (county jails)," said Cook County spokeswoman Sophia Ansari. "We don’t always use all the county jails we have contracts with."
Inmates are only sent away when there’s the threat of a safety issue, a regular occurrence with gang-related crimes.
"It’s purely used when we need to remove a detainee," said Cara Smith, chief of policy for Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.
For example, Boone-Doty is in Monticello, but Corey Morgan, his alleged accomplice in the murder of 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee, is currently housed at the Kankakee County Jail. Tyshawn’s father, Pierre Stokes, is in the Cook County Jail on charges that he shot three people in retaliation for his son’s murder.
Keeping all three away from each other, as well as rival gang members, helps keep everyone safe, Cook County officials say.
"There’s no need to do it from a population standpoint. We only do that consideration when it is necessary," Smith said.
How it works
On Saturdays, Cook County corrections employees drive a van round-trip between Chicago and Monticello, dropping off any new inmates and picking up those with upcoming court dates.
The van is often seen on Monticello’s town square, where corrections officers grab a bite to eat.
Most of the inmates are gang members who stay for fewer than 30 days, but in some of the higher-profile cases, inmates can spend months in Piatt County.
Hunt doesn’t have to worry about sorting out the inmates — Dart’s staff in Chicago does that for him, preventing rival gang members from being placed in the same cells.
"Our security and intelligence staff work with the counties, and we make sure they know who they’re getting," Smith said. "There’s no surprises on either end."
Since the program’s launch, Hunt said there haven’t been any major problems involving inmates fighting but he’s careful not to mix the locals with the visitors. The jail has more than enough room for Cook’s 15 and the 8-10 people arrested locally.
That extra space helps out in other ways, too, Hunt said. For example, when Champaign Police Officer Jerad Gale was arrested on sexual assault charges, he was taken to the Piatt jail, so he wouldn’t have to be in the same facility as people he had previous encounters with.
In 2014, the Monticello jail also housed a Champaign tuberculosis patient after he failed to follow a court order to remain confined to his home.
If neighboring counties have problem inmates, they know that Piatt’s jail doors are always open.
"All the local sheriffs work together," Hunt said.
Temp housing
Cook County has arrangements with 12 of Illinois’ 102 counties to house jail inmates for safety reasons. Only three of the 12, including Piatt County, had out-of-town inmates on Friday:
DeWitt: 0
Ford: 0
Henry: 0
Jefferson: 0
Kankakee: 48
Livingston :37
Marion: 0
Mercer: 0
Moultrie: 0
Piatt: 15
Rock Island: 0
Saline: 0