10142016 - News Article - Former Lake Station mayor reports to prison

Former Lake Station mayor reports to prison
NWI The Times
Oct 14, 2016
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/crime-and-court/former-lake-station-mayor-reports-to-prison/article_32653cc2-b039-513a-9621-57e78f3aed0c.html

HAMMOND — Former Lake Station mayor Keith Soderquist has begun his prison term for public corruption.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons website Friday states Soderquist, 47, of Lake Station, is in custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago. He is serving a four-year sentence.

His 58-year-old wife, Deborah, is currently scheduled to surrender Oct. 31 to the U.S. Marshal’s service for her two-year sentence.

The Lake Station couple misused tens of thousands of dollars from the mayor’s re-election campaign fund and the city’s food pantry account to gamble at nearby casinos. The former mayor also is being punished for attempting to cover up his stepdaughter Miranda Brakley’s embezzlement of Lake Station City Court money.

Keith Soderquist had asked U.S. District Court Judges Rudy Lozano and James Moody last month to postpone his sentence to give him time to undergo surgery, which had been scheduled to take place Thursday.

The judges agreed that if he underwent surgery Thursday he could put off his prison reporting date until Nov. 14.

But, Soderquist’s lawyers filed a new petition this week for another delay since his surgery date was canceled. His insurance company hadn’t agreed last month to approve the medical procedure.

The Bureau of Prisons website doesn’t state where the couple will serve their time. Their lawyers last month asked for them to live at a nearby minimum security facility that would allow them to visit their medical providers.

Lozano said last month he is confident the two can receive adequate health care services from the Bureau of Prisons.

Keith Soderquist, who had served nearly eight years in office, came under state and federal scrutiny four years ago following a public feud between him and former Lake Station City Judge Christopher A. Anderson, who was elected to replace Soderquist in the mayor’s office.

Anderson fired Miranda Brakley, the mayor’s stepdaughter, for stealing money held by the court from those arrested and posting bond in Lake Station.

Federal authorities discovered Keith and Deborah Soderquist lost more than $100,000 between 2009 and 2012 at casino slot machines and made dozens of withdrawals during the same three years from his campaign fund and the city’s food pantry account.

A jury last year also found the former mayor and his wife guilty after an eight-day trial of all counts. Brakley, 35, of Lake Station, received six months home detention July 7 for her guilty plea to the theft.