By Rummana Hussain
The Chicago Sun-Times
CHICAGO — A Chicago firefighter was sentenced Monday to three years of probation after being convicted of swiping a gas meter from a burned-out building while on duty and installing it at his own home.
Cook County Judge Kenneth Wadas told the firefighter, Milton Stewart, that he had abused the public’s “confidence and trust” to get free natural gas.
Wadas also ordered Stewart, 39, to pay $4,500 to Peoples Gas.
Stewart had removed the gas meter while working in an official capacity for the Chicago Fire Department last year, prosecutors said.
He also drafted and faxed a fraudulent lease agreement for a building in the 4700 block of South Indiana and used false Social Security card information to secure gas service, authorities said.
Stewart, of the 1600 block of East 85th, was found guilty in December of official misconduct, fraud, identity theft and forgery.
Stewart joined the department in 2001 and was assigned to a truck company after his arrest, Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said Monday.
Langford said Stewart is on unpaid administrative leave but is “in the last stages of the removal process.”
“He probably won’t be with the department much longer,” Langford said.
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