Ex-Cook Co. judge accused of stealing decorated Tuskegee Airman and civil rights hero’s life savings

• Patricia Martin, who sat on the bench in Cook County for 24 years, was in charge of handling Oscar Wilkerson Jr’s life savings
• But his family and the state legal disciplinary agency claim she stole $240,000 of his money and sunk more than $100,000 into cryptocurrency
• Wilkerson was a highly decorated Tuskegee airman and civil rights pioneer who was one of the first black military pilots to fight for the United States in the war

A former top judge in Illinois accused of stealing the life savings of a World War II hero has been ordered to pay back $1.2million. 

Patricia Martin, who sat on the bench in Cook County for 24 years, was in charge of handling Oscar Wilkerson Jr’s life savings.

But his family and the state legal disciplinary agency claim she stole $240,000 of his money and sunk more than $100,000 into cryptocurrency, according to ABC Chicago. 

Wilkerson was a highly decorated Tuskegee airman and civil rights pioneer who was one of the first black military pilots to fight for the United States in the war before he  settled down in Chicago. 

He trusted Martin, who is his former wife’s niece, to look after his finances as his health deteriorated but sued her last September and said she took advantage of his old age and hid his retirement money. 

The veteran died a day before his 97th birthday on February 8 and Cook County Circuit Judge Anna Demacopoulos ordered Martin to pay $1.2 million on May 24 due to ‘the defendant’s continued unresponsiveness’. 

Wilkerson spent his final days at an Orland Park senior living home while Martin was was looking after his bank, 401k, and social security accounts.

She was a judge for 24 years and was presiding judge of the Cook County juvenile court’s child protection division when she retired in 2020 a month after she took control of Wilkerson’s finances. 

In April 2022, she reported that he had about $50,000 in his checking account and $120,000 in a retirement account, according to the lawsuit.

But alarm bells were raised in July when Wilkerson was allegedly notified that he owed $41,296.10 to the retirement home he was living in because payments had not been made in recent months. 

He found out his accounts had been ’emptied’ and it wasn’t clear where his Social Security and pension payments were being deposited, the court documents state. 

Martin did not respond to questions about where the money had gone or requests for information during the litigation, according to the court records. 

And in October, Wilkerson’s attorneys said they were voicing their concerns to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, the Illinois attorney general’s office and the Illinois Department of Aging. 

They claimed former judge Martin had ‘dissipated funds and may be engaging in risky crypto transactions that threaten the remaining funds that exist’ less than a month later.

Following Wilkerson’s death, Martin was then ordered by Judge Demacopoulos ‘to refrain from transferring or using any further funds’ at a hearing on April 6. 

Wilkerson’s lawyers obtained records through a subpoena which showed his money being wire transferred to cryptocurrency exchange accounts that were emptied, a May 11 filing stated. 

The latest transactions were between April 6 and April 28 which totaled $2,875.29 and went against the judge’s order.

The veteran’s attorneys then wrote to the judge to ask Martin to demonstrate why she shouldn’t be held in contempt of court and order her to return the money and show where she put it. 

They then reported that a total of $383,236.75 had been taken out of his accounts and other people had to come together to pay the money owed to Wilkerson’s retirement home. 

And the lawyers asked for Martin to be sanctioned for not answering the questions or providing records of where the money went and asked for a default judgement of $1,229,384.31.

This order was signed and granted by Judge Demacopoulos on May 24 and Martin was ordered to pay more three times what she allegedly took for damages, fees and court costs. 

Martin is said to have texted Wilkerson’s lawyers last October that she was ‘not denying nor admitting to any of the allegations’. 

One of his attorneys replied that it ‘speaks volumes and is indeed an admission of wrongdoing on your part.’ 

Martin promised to ‘forward the remaining monies’, court documents containing the text exchange showed. 

‘As a former attorney and judge, you fully understand that repayment of stolen funds doesn’t undo the crime,’ the attorney replied.

‘I am also sure you understand that neither I nor anyone involved here is confident that you will actually return funds weeks from now.’

A week after Judge Demacopoulos’s May ruling, the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC) filed a complaint against Martin. 

The state legal disciplinary agency alleged she ‘used at least $246,203.80 of … funds without his authority for her own personal purpose’ to buy ‘cryptocurrency that she held in her own name and over which she maintained exclusive control’. 

And it accused her of ’emptying his accounts to the point … the assisted living facility had not been paid’. 

The complaint also said Martin submitted a filing in the civil case where she ‘admitted that she had wrongfully assumed control’ over the veteran’s finances and ‘had intentionally deprived’ him of his money. 

The ARDC said she has to either fight against the allegations or accept them which could result in her disbarment. 

During her career, Martin was appointed by former president Barack Obama to join the Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities in 2013. 

Wilkerson joined the Tuskegee Airmen, the first black aviation combat unit, after leaving high school in 1944.

The group suffered significant racial discrimination while serving because of segregation of the military at the time.

‘The military had no intention of using black pilots. The real mission, the underlying mission, was for us to fail and prove their point,’ Wilkerson previously said in an interview. 

But their bravery in the war helped pave the way for desegregation. They were awarded a Congressional Gold Medal in 2006. 

He frequently toured churches and schools to tell the story of how the Tuskegee Airmen shattered the stereotype that black men couldn’t be combat pilots.

Wilkerson, the last known surviving member of the group in Chicago, used to introduce children to aviation and take them on their first flights for free through the Experimental Aircraft Association’s Young Eagles Program. 

He also worked as a DJ and hosted his own radio show until he retired.