Fired Joliet museum employee wants ban from Old Joliet Prison site lifted

A ban that prevents two retired prison guards from stepping onto the site of the Old Joliet Prison, where they once worked and later volunteered as tour guides, is now in its third year.

The wife of one of those guards told Joliet Mayor Terry D’Arcy and the Joliet City Council last week that it’s time for the ban against them and other former museum employees and volunteers to be lifted.

“Mayor D’Arcy and City Council members I am asking for your help,” Christine Johnson said at the council meeting on July 1. “Please intervene to have the ban lifted.”

The Joliet Area Historical Museum manages the prison property, which the city of Joliet leases from the state.

Johnson, a former museum employee who also conducted tours at the Old Joliet Prison, was among 13 workers and volunteers fired in 2023 from the staff of the Joliet Area Historical Museum.

Her appearance at last week’s council meeting was an indication that the dismissed staffers and volunteers, many of whom contend they were falsely accused, are not ready to let the matter drop.

Her husband, Michael Johnson, “is 68, and he is convinced that he will never see the inside of those limestone walls again,” Johnson told the council.

Michael Johnson and Ron Trujillo worked as prison guards and counselors at the Joliet Correctional Center before the prison closed in 2002.

Both later served as museum volunteers. When the Joliet Correctional Center was reopened by the city and museum for tours, Michael Johnson and Trujillo led tours providing their perspective as former prison guards until they were dismissed and banned from the site.

Christine Johnson led prison tours as an employee of the museum until she was fired in 2023.

The Johnsons, Trujillo and others have contended that they were wrongly linked to online comments about museum Chief Executive Officer Greg Peerbolte and his wife.

In her comments to the council, Johnson said that Peerbolte threatened her with arrest while preventing her from leaving a room where she was told she was being fired on the day of her dismissal.

Johnson said Peerbolte was “yelling at me and accusing me of sending threatening letters and death threats to his wife.”

Peerbolte, when contacted by The Herald-News, said he would not comment on Christine Johnson’s statement because it involved a personnel matter, an issue on which public officials typically do not comment.

Christine Johnson after the council meeting said she intended to come back to the council if the city did not intervene to lift the ban preventing the dismissed employees and volunteers from stepping foot on museum property and the prison.

City officials said a year ago that they would attempt to work out a solution after Michael Johnson and Trujillo came to a council meeting to object to their banned status.

No solution was worked out.

On Monday, City Manager Beth Beatty issued a statement through email saying, “This is a personnel matter for the historical museum to resolve.”

In addition to being a partner with the museum in the Old Joliet Prison project, the city provides an annual $250,000 subsidy to the museum.