Former Petersburg street superintendent Jim Nimmo (right) got 60 days in jail for pot last week. Photo by City of Petersburg.The former street superintendent for the City of Petersburg was sentenced to 60 days in jail last week after being arrested for marijuana delivery in August. His sentencing comes after evidence he was given by the city’s police department ended up at a crime scene.
James Nimmo of Petersburg was employed by the City of Petersburg at the time that he was observed delivering marijuana by a multi-county drug task force on three occasions in May and June 2015. Court documents show Nimmo was in possession of $1,500 worth of marijuana.
Nimmo was arrested Aug. 20, 2015, and charged with three counts of unlawful delivery of cannabis. One count was ultimately dropped as part of a plea deal in which Nimmo pleaded guilty on Jan. 26 to two of the counts and accepted a 60-day jail sentence with work release and a fine.
Petersburg attorney John Alvarez, who represented Nimmo in court, could not be immediately reached for comment.
The Petersburg City Council voted on Sept. 1 to fire Nimmo.
At the Oct. 6 Petersburg City Council meeting, Petersburg police chief Dave Coulter said the Illinois State Police were investigating items previously in the department’s evidence storage. He said a drug house the city police busted two years ago contained marijuana grow lights, and the department was eventually ordered to destroy them.
“Jim Nimmo was there and he wanted to know if he could have the lights for his garage,” Coulter told the city council. “We were just going to throw them away anyway, so he took them, and then they ended up showing up at a grow.”
Coulter said at the meeting that the department’s policy on disposal of evidence has since been changed.
In October 2015, Illinois Times requested a copy of the Illinois State Police investigative report in Nimmo’s case, but the state police denied the newspaper’s request, saying releasing the documents would compromise the investigation. A request for review of the denial is pending with the Illinois attorney general’s office.
Contact Patrick Yeagle at pyeagle@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2016.
