Tyrone C. Fahner, a Republican who ran a Chicago law firm and was a leader in civic affairs after a legal career that included an appointed term as Illinois attorney general, died Monday at his home in Northfield.
A product of Jim Thompson’s stable of assistant federal prosecutors, Fahner’s career included leading a task force investigating the Tylenol murders and becoming president of the law firm Mayer Brown, where he was a legal mentor to the former mayor Lori Lightfoot. No cause of death was given for Fahner, who was 81.
Although his tenure as a public official was brief, Fahner sought to ensure that Republicans were represented in Illinois even as the state shifted more Democratic. He served as finance chairman for the state GOP and helped recruit Republican candidates for office. Meanwhile, Mayer Brown, with Lightfoot sometimes on the legal team, also represented the GOP in what ended up being largely unsuccessful efforts to curb Democratic gerrymandering of state and legislative district maps.
From 2010 to 2017, Fahner was president of the Commercial Club of Chicago and its Civic Committee, which is made up of top city and regional leaders. The group during Fahner’s tenure pushed for changes in the state’s public employee pension system, although a 2013 legislative effort to change benefits was unanimously rejected as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Illinois.
Fahner was best known as the face of the 200-member task force that investigated the 1982 deaths of seven Chicago-area residents from ingesting Tylenol cold capsules contaminated with cyanide. As attorney general and in the midst of an election to keep the job, Fahner led daily briefings as investigators tried to piece together clues in the case. He was called “Tylenol Ty” by state residents in Springfield, while Democrats accused Fahner of using free air time for political gain.
“It wasn’t a grab for authority,” Fahner told the Tribune in 2022. “I had people dropping dead all over the place.”
The case, which panicked the nation and led to pharmaceutical packaging being sold without counterfeiting, has never been definitively resolved. James Lewis, the only suspect who was convicted of trying to extort Tylenol manufacturers, died in July 2023 at the age of 76. Lewis said he did not poison the capsules.
Fahner was born in Detroit, Michigan, to a union autoworker father and a mother who was a telephone operator. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, his law degree from Wayne State University Law School and a master of law degree from Northwestern University School of Law in 1971.
In the early 1970s, he became an assistant federal prosecutor under James R. Thompson, who was then the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Fahner headed the official corruption section. His most celebrated case helped win the conviction of powerful Chicago Ald. Thomas Keane, the chairman of the City Council’s Finance Committee, on postal fraud and conspiracy charges in 1974.
After Thompson was elected governor in 1976, he selected Fahner to be the director of the Illinois Department of Law Enforcement, which is now the Illinois State Police. Fahner served two years before moving into private practice. But when Illinois Attorney General William Scott was convicted of federal tax evasion in 1980, Thompson appointed Fahner to the vacancy.
“I’ve been very fortunate in my professional and personal life. I’ve been blessed with a rare opportunity. I hope to do well,” Fahner said. “My only regret is that the opportunity comes at the expense and tragedy of another human being. Bill Scott was a fine and distinguished attorney general.”
Seeking a full four-year term in 1982, the same year of the Tylenol panic, Fahner was sometimes sick of his campaign and admitted he was “a little naive” not knowing how to contact Republican officials locals when he arrived in town. . He also sought to burnish his GOP credentials, claiming he used to sweep the path of George Romney, the former GOP governor of Michigan. Fahner was defeated by Democrat Neil Hartigan.
After losing, Fahner joined Mayer Brown as a partner, served on its management committee from 1985 to 2007, was its co-chairman from 1998 to 2001 and its chairman from 2001 to 2007.
“The Mayer Brown community mourns the passing of our friend, colleague and former president, Ty Fahner,” the attorney said in a statement.
“A mentor to many, Ty was a respected leader who led the company through a time of incredible growth and change. His dedication to the Chicago community through extensive civic and charitable work reflects his deep commitment to service. L Ty’s legacy of leadership and friendship will be deeply missed,” the attorney said.
Fahner also served on the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Overseas Heritage from 2007 to 2023 as an appointee of President George W. Bush. He also served from 1988 to 1991 as President Ronald Reagan’s appointee to the Foreign Exchange Board.
Fahner joined the Shedd Aquarium’s board of trustees in 2004 and became the board’s chairman in 2012.
Survivors include his wife, Anne. Arrangements were pending.
Stacy St. Clair of the Chicago Tribune contributed.
