Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot was sued late last year for unpaid credit card debt, records show.
Lightfoot was served in October at her Chicago home with a lawsuit from JPMorgan Chase Bank for allegedly failing to pay about $11,078 in bills, according to a copy of the complaint filed in Cook County Circuit Court.
The suit says that Lightfoot did not object to the bank’s last statement issued before it declared her debt a charge-off in March. Her last payment on the card was in August 2025, amounting to $5,000, and her next court hearing in the case is in December, according to the complaint.
Through a spokesperson, Lightfoot declined comment on Monday.
Lightfoot left office in May 2023 after failing to make the runoff during her campaign for a second term. Since then she has worn a variety of hats as a private citizen, serving as a visiting professor at the University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy as well as teaching at Harvard University and the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics.
Other roles include being tapped as the special investigator in the corruption probe of embattled Dolton ex-Mayor Tiffany Henyard and launching a nonprofit called the Chicago Vibrant Neighborhoods Collective.
Last week, Lightfoot unveiled the “ICE Accountability Project,” billed as a tool to collect and document federal immigration agents’ alleged criminal or abusive conduct during Operation Midway Blitz.
Lightfoot, who grew up in the working-class town of Massillon, Ohio, reported $402,414 in adjusted gross income in 2021, the most recent year the Tribune requested her returns. She reported taking out $210,000 in early distributions from retirement accounts that year to supplement her mayoral salary.
While working as a partner at law firm Mayer Brown before becoming mayor, Lightfoot reported an average adjusted gross income of $971,626 from 2014 through 2017.