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Marine’s car allegedly keyed by protester

People scrape keys across other people’s cars for lots of petty reasons — romantic betrayal, unpaid debts or all sorts of perceived slights. But when one man in Chicago carved a few deep lines into Sgt. Michael McNulty’s BMW, it inspired national outrage.

McNulty was getting ready to go back to Iraq for a second tour a few weeks ago when he left a friend’s apartment building to find a stranger vandalizing his car.

The shiny, black, two-door car displayed a Marine Corps license plate and a couple of USMC stickers. When McNulty confronted the man, the Marine faced a tirade of “anti-war and anti-military” remarks, according to a police report.

Many of McNulty’s fellow Marines might be stunned to learn that the 26-year-old reservist didn’t punch the man in the face on the spot. Instead, he called the Chicago police.

“He wanted to let the system handle it,” said McNulty’s brother, William McNulty, in a telephone interview.

Police arrived moments later to find McNulty standing next to Jay Grodner, a 55-year-old attorney who maintains two offices in the Chicago area. Grodner denied scraping the car. He claimed his accusers were anti-Semitic and singled him out because he is Jewish. The police report notes that Grodner’s responses to police questions were “unreasonable.”

Grodner was charged with a Class-A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.

The episode might have passed mostly unnoticed. Local prosecutors were initially reluctant to take the case to trial, possibly because McNulty was leaving the country and would be unavailable to testify. According to his brother, prosecutors suggested McNulty accept Grodner’s offer to cover the $100 deductible and let McNulty’s insurance company cover the rest.

That’s when the details of the Dec. 1 incident began to circulate on the Internet. Dozens of bloggers dubbed Grodner a “military-hating lawyer” and wrote scathing criticism of the local prosecutors’ handling of the matter.

Several posted Grodner’s address and one of his photographs, captured from a local Internet dating site. The story was picked up by a popular columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

Meanwhile, Grodner is hard to find. His home phone and two office phone numbers have been disconnected and his law firm’s Web site shut down. A Marine Corps Times e-mail to Grodner elicited no response.

Grodner is due back in court Jan. 18 to face a count of criminal damage to property, a charge limited to incidents involving less than $300 in damage. Michael McNulty declined to comment on the case, but his brother said initial estimates to repair and repaint the car topped $2,300.

Andy Conklin, a spokesman for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, declined to comment on the discrepancy and said only that Grodner “is charged with what the evidence supported.”

McNulty reported to Camp Pendleton, Calif., on Jan. 2 and is expecting to ship out to Iraq soon. Prosecutors say his testimony is not necessary to move forward with the case.

“We feel we have enough evidence to proceed without” him, Conklin said.

Though he might not be in the courtroom, McNulty might derive some comfort from the fact that the presiding judge is a former Marine. Circuit Court Judge William O’Malley was a lance corporal in the early 1960s and is known around the Chicago Courthouse for wearing a Marine Corps pin on his lapel and celebrating the Corps’ birthday each November.

It’s not the first time Grodner has been accused of misconduct. His permission to practice law was suspended in 1984.

Grodner, then an assistant prosecutor with the Kane County State’s Attorney’s office, was found with several other lawyers drinking beer at a pub and forging voters’ signatures on a series of petitions, court documents state.

The petitions were seeking a statewide referendum on whether taxing and spending caps should be imposed on state and local governments, court documents state.