Eric Gregg, on right, former mayor of Harrisburg until he was appointed to former governor Pat Quinn’s Illinois Prisoner Review Board (and even then, he didn’t step down for a number of months) is shown with wife Patricia, at left, and daughter Alecia Paige…who has allegedly welched on a student loan issued to her almost ten years ago. A small claims case was recently filed against the two women in Saline County civil court. It’s unclear why Gregg, a well-paid state employee, can’t make his debts, as his recent bankruptcy filing indicates, but apparently, the tendency is inherited.
SALINE CO.—As if following in her father’s footsteps which tiptoe on the edge of insanity weren’t enough, one of Eric Gregg’s offspring has also now followed him into financial irresponsibility, as well.
Whereas last month, the former mayor of Harrisburg had filed for a Chapter 13 (reorganization of debt) bankruptcy in federal court in Benton, this month, his daughter Alecia Paige Gregg, formerly Burk, age 27, has been the recipient of a Small Claims case in Saline County as filed by the National Collegiate Student Loan Trust, having defaulted on a student loan from 2006.
Ms. Gregg apparently resides with her parents in the house on Gregg Lane in Harrisburg that maintains a second mortgage as listed in her father’s bankruptcy, as outlined in federal court paperwork featured in last month’s issue.
Complaint filed in January
Her complaint, which also lists her mother (who was an apparent co-signor on the loan taken out through National City Bank, NA), shows said address. The complaint was filed January 6.
According to the paperwork, the loan was opened and funds disbursed on September 20, 2005. The loan was then transferred, sold and assigned to National Collegiate Funding, who in turn did the same, assigning it to the ultimate holder, National Collegiate Student Loan Trust.
This would have been initially for the time Ms. Gregg attended school at Southeastern Illinois College in Harrisburg. She was, however, also at least running in Carbondale at some point after that whether she was actually in school there, and financed it, remains unaddressed in Saline County paperwork), which is home of Southern Illinois University, where she encountered trouble in 2007 and 2008, according to Jackson County court documents and police records Disclosure obtained in 2013.
These included an April 2008 felony Aggravated Battery of First Aid Personnel charge which was amended four months later to Domestic Battery…actually a secondary charge that authorities learned of upon further investigation into an incident that occurred at a Carbondale bar, wherein Ms. Gregg attacked a significant other, ran out into traffic, was struck by a passing motorist, then attacked first responders who were trying to help her.
Said attacks were in large part what ended her college career, since she had a tendency to run after her beaus with shoes and attack them—or anything else that got in the way, including glass doors—whenever she went off the deep end, particularly where alcohol came into play.
Instability
It was Ms. Gregg’s proclivities in that arena in June of 2013 that brought her instability to the attention of Disclosure, after Evansville police confirmed that there had been a report of Ms. Gregg, separated from her husband Addison Burk but “trying to work it out” at a casino boat in that town, beating him bloody in their hotel room…with a shoe heel. Casino hotel workers found bloodied towels in front of a room down the hall from the Burks. Evansville police advised that no one at the casino wished to press charges, owing to the negative publicity the incident would raise.
It was surmised at that time that Gregg, who was under fire for holding the state job while still seated as mayor (which is against Illinois law), intervened on behalf of his errant kid, pulling political favors into the mix, in order to make the whole thing go away quietly…and when that was discovered, and it did not “go away” but instead made headlines, Gregg attempted to intimidate Disclosure for running the story, even trying to get one staffer arrested.
Since that time, Gregg’s antics, as well as those of his kid, have been exposed and his fiscal irresponsibility has become a topic of concern locally, since taxpayers are funding him to the tune of about $1,700 a week with little return for their investment, up to and including another tirade Gregg issued toward a Disclosure vendor (which case isn’t closed just yet), the civil filing a former co-worker has made against him (in which it’s alleged that he owes her at least $10,000 in income she gained while working with yet another one of his fly-by-night businesses, an energy aggregate venture, which he also kept for a few months while holding the PRB job), his December 2014 bankruptcy, and now, his kid’s student loan default.
Payments made for years, then stopped
Court paperwork indicates that payments were made on the student loan—which was only $3,781.08—until May 5, 2011.
Then, according to A. Marisa Dartania, the Legal Support Specialist who filed the affidavit attesting to Paige Gregg’s default, as of October 3, 2014, when material for the filing was being gathered, interest assessed on the loan brought the total to $4,166.28…which is what’s currently being sought.
Interestingly, Ms. Gregg is also the subject of a filing in Vanderburgh County court in Indiana, where she has left a debt to Deaconess Hospital in Evansville, this made a matter of court record on Dec. 11, 2014. According to online records, there is no amount specified, and there is not indication of whether this was a hospital stay for a legitimate medical purpose, or whether she was hospitalized due to an ongoing mental condition.
Instability…again
That remains a possibility, as, during her Vanderburgh County divorce, filed February of 2013, Ms. Gregg’s then-husband Burk requested that her “mental health records” be released to the court in consideration over how much “parenting time” the two would get with their son, who is almost four years old now.
Over Ms. Gregg’s objections, the mental health records were released to the judge to be reviewed in camera (without anyone else being allowed to see them), this in December 2013.
The divorce was finalized in September of 2014; there is no indication that the mental health records altered the agreement of parenting time as set forth, which was with his father (in Evansville) Sundays to Thursdays, and mother (in Harrisburg) Thursdays to Sundays.
It remains unclear, under this auspice, whether or not the toddler was one of the “five in household” that Eric Gregg claimed on his bankruptcy…but which fudging, for Eric Gregg, is fairly routine if he is not.
Alecia Paige Gregg’s first hearing on the Small Claims case in Saline County civil court is set for February 9 at 9 a.m.