The case involving Christopher DeChant, of the once-nationally syndicated HIV Talk Radio Project, has been continued to next year.
On June 30, the office of Illinois Attorney Lisa Madigan filed a lawsuit against DeChant and Kim Leffert, an attorney who was a member of the project’s board of directors, claiming that they misappropriated more than $1.4 million of the organization’s funding. The suit asserts that DeChant, the executive producer and former host of ‘AWARE Talk Radio,’ and Leffert signed almost two dozen checks from the organization’s account between February 1999 and April 2004. Madigan’s office further alleges that the checks were made payable to New World Media—a fictitious company.
In an answer filed in September, DeChant repeatedly invoked ‘his privileges under the United States and Illinois constitutions not to answer the allegations contained in Paragraphs … of the Complaint, as such answers might tend to incriminate DeChant.’
The case is set on status call for Feb. 20 in front of Judge Nancy Jo Arnold.