By Howard Packowitz

BLOOMINGTON – McLean County State’s Attorney Jason Chambers is looking to replace his chief deputy who’s leaving to become a federal prosecutor at about the same time that Chambers himself might become a judge.

Chambers confirms he’s applied to replace McLean County Circuit Judge Robert Freitag, who’s retiring this summer. The Illinois Supreme Court will make that appointment, and Chambers noted there are other qualified candidates seeking that job.

Chambers said he has “significant energy” to serve the community in either position. Voters first elected Chambers as state’s attorney in 2012. He’s up for re-election in 2020.

Meantime, Chambers is losing First Assistant State’s Attorney Adam Ghrist, who will become an assistant U.S. Attorney in Peoria.

It’s an incredible honor to be able to join the United States Attorney’s Office, to get to serve not only my community in McLean County, the State of Illinois, but also the United States of America,” said Ghrist.

Ghrist, 36, is a graduate of Illinois State University and the Southern Illinois University law school. He started working in the state’s attorney’s office in 2007 and was promoted to First Assistant State’s Attorney in 2015.

“The people here in this office, in this building, and our law enforcement here in this community are some of the best people I could ever have the pleasure of serving with,” Ghrist said.

“I’ve grown a lot as a person, as an attorney, it’s bittersweet to be able to move on from here,” Ghrist added.

Chambers said there’s significant depth and experience among prosecutors in his office to handle Ghrist’s high profile workload, which includes the Kirk Zimmerman murder case and theft charges against five executives who used to run Downtown Bloomington’s indoor sports arena.

Chambers said he assigns more than one attorney to major cases, specifically for these type of contingencies.

Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]