URBANA — State Rep. Carol Ammons and her husband, Champaign County Clerk Aaron Ammons, entered not guilty pleas to federal corruption charges Thursday while their supporters claimed their prosecutions were racially motivated.
The two were charged in an indictment handed down July 7 in the Central District of Illinois. They made initial appearances in separate hearings before a federal magistrate judge who summarized the charges and explained their rights.
Their trial was tentatively set for Sept. 22, although that is likely to be postponed due to the volume of documents being used as evidence in the cases. Both remain free while awaiting trial.
Meanwhile, Republicans in the Illinois House have also called for a special investigating committee to look into the allegations behind Carol Ammons’ indictment, a process that could eventually lead to her ouster from the General Assembly.
Carol Ammons, an 11-year veteran of the Illinois House, faces eight counts of wire fraud, one count of making false statements to investigators and one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice. Aaron Ammons faces one count each of conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
“I maintain that these allegations are not true, and I look forward to responding to them through the legal process where the facts can be fully examined,” she told reporters outside the courthouse following the hearing.
Also speaking outside the courthouse was Kamm Howard, a reparations activist from Chicago, who suggested the indictments were part of a U.S. Department of Justice campaign to shut down efforts to provide reparations to descendants of enslaved African Americans. That included DOJ’s motion in June to intervene in a lawsuit challenging the city of Evanston’s reparations program, he said.
“Rep. Carol Ammons has been one of Illinois’ strongest and most consistent champions of reparations, racial justice and transformative public policy,” Howard said. “Her indictment must therefore be examined within the broader environment in which reparations programs, the public officials who advance them and the communities that support them are increasingly being confronted with federal hostility.”
Prosecutors allege Carol Ammons engaged in schemes to convert campaign funds to personal use and to steer state grant funds to nonprofit organizations that employed her daughter, Titianna Ammons. The indictment also accuses Aaron Ammons of conspiring to help cover up the schemes.
From 2017 through 2025, the indictment alleges, Carol Ammons converted campaign funds to personal use by issuing checks to individuals or vendors and then having them return a portion to her in the form of kickbacks, or “gifts.”
It also alleges Carol Ammons and her daughter “received financial benefits in excess of $100,000” beginning in 2017 through roughly 2023. Ammons is also accused of lying to an FBI agent in 2024 about her daughter being paid out of state grant funds through one of the nonprofits Titianna Ammons was affiliated with.
Aaron Ammons is also accused of engaging in a conspiracy to cover up the schemes, including instructing one potential witness to “muddy the waters” with the FBI “to obstruct its ability to trace the illegal cash payments to Carol Ammons,” according to the indictment.
Titianna Ammons was not charged in the indictment but faces other federal charges in an unrelated case accusing her of defrauding state and federal unemployment programs and collecting enhanced pandemic-era benefits.
Dozens of spectators crowded into the small courtroom to witness the hearing, including some of Carol Ammons’ political supporters.
“I think that it’s an injustice,” Maryann Blackburn, of Champaign, told Capitol News Illinois. “I mean, given the level of corruption in our government today, especially in Washington, D.C., the amounts that they’re talking about are all so minuscule compared to the millions and billions of dollars that are the amount of corruption there is in Washington, D.C. And yeah, I don’t I don’t believe the charges.”
According to prosecutors, the wire fraud and obstruction charges each carry maximum sentences of 20 years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, $250,000 fines, a $100,000 special assessment and restitution.
The charge of making false statements to law enforcement is punishable by up to five years in prison and three years supervised release, a $250,000 fine and a $100,000 special assessment.
None of the charges carries any mandatory minimum sentence, meaning even if they were convicted on all charges, they would not necessarily serve any time in prison.
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.