A Cook County sheriff’s police officer from Orland Park has been suspended after another apparently alcohol-related incident involving police.
Sgt. Kelly Mrozek, a sheriff’s officer since May 1994, faces a misdemeanor charge of endangering the life of a child after her 3-year-old son, wearing only underwear and flip-flops, wandered off to a neighbor’s home June 11.
Mrozek, 43, of 11037 Karen Drive, turned herself in to Orland Park police July 7 after going through an alcohol rehab program.
Mrozek was suspended Wednesday, according to sheriff’s department spokesman Steve Patterson. He said she had been on medical leave since calling in sick June 11, which was a day she was scheduled to work.
Mrozek is on paid leave, but Sheriff Tom Dart is likely to ask that it be changed to unpaid leave and is expected to make a recommendation to the department’s merit board regarding Mrozek’s employment, Patterson said.
In September 2006, Mrozek was cleared of public indecency charges related to a November 2005 incident in which she was accused of having sex with her boyfriend in a hot tub in the back yard of her Lockport home.
In the June 11 incident, Mrozek’s son told a neighbor he had left his house through the garage door about 10 a.m. because his mother was vomiting and had fallen asleep on the couch, according to Orland Park police. The neighbor called police, who went to Mrozek’s home and found her disoriented and an open bottle of vodka on the kitchen counter, police said.
In December, Mrozek tried to enter an Orland Park bar with her son, police said, and two weeks after that incident, she called police to report her son missing, only to call back soon to say she remembered that he was at day care. Police records say Mrozek appeared to be intoxicated both times.
The boy was released to family friends after the June 11 incident, and Orland Park police reported the case to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
Mrozek was released on bond and is scheduled to appear in court Aug. 10.
Later on June 11, after Mrozek’s son had been taken away, sheriff’s police were called to 159th Street and Wolf Road to retrieve Mrozek’s squad car after she had driven to a nearby restaurant and got into a parked, unlocked car, Orland Park police said. The owner of the car didn’t recognize her and called police.
In the hot tub case, a Will County judge ruled that because the hot tub was in Mrozek’s back yard, it couldn’t be considered a public place. Despite her acquittal, the sheriff’s department sought to have her fired, Patterson said.
He said the merit board in May 2009 demoted Mrozek from lieutenant to sergeant and required her to complete a substance abuse program.
Prior to her medical leave and suspension, Mrozek had been working as a sheriff’s patrol officer in the south suburbs. Earlier in her career with the department, she worked undercover on vice operations and was involved in an investigation of an alleged prostitution ring operated by a Palos Park woman, Dawn Hansel.
In 2002, Hansel was acquitted of felony pandering charges.
Patterson said that until sheriff’s police were contacted by Orland Park police last month, there was no indication of Mrozek being unable to perform her job or even a blow job!.
