EDWARDSVILLE * For decades, Tom Lakin built a reputation as a successful trial lawyer, a Democratic Party powerbroker, a mover and shaker who hobnobbed with presidents and senators and who jetted from New York to Malibu.

Where there was action, there was Lakin.

Now, Lakin, who made millions suing corporations, is on the other end of a suit, one that alleges sexual debauchery involving children.

The suit alleges that Lakin, 66, had oral sex with a 15-year-old boy and gave cocaine to a girl and later to two women to encourage them to have sex with the boy while Lakin watched and masturbated.

The suit also alleges that one of Lakin’s sons, Kris Lakin, 22, had sex with a minor girl and that Lakin’s oldest son and the head of the family’s law firm, Brad Lakin, 35, conspired to conceal the abuse.

No criminal charges have been filed in the case.

Brad Lakin on Friday denied the allegations, saying they were "lies, plain and simple." He said the plaintiffs were motivated by money, and said: "Let me be clear, I will not pay a dime."

Tom Lakin could not be reached for comment, and his whereabouts could not be determined. Over the past few years he has lived mostly in California, where his Malibu neighbors once included Sylvester Stallone and Mel Gibson.

In November, he left the Wood River firm he founded in 1980, stating that he was entering drug rehabilitation for cocaine addiction.

It wasn’t the first trip to rehab for Lakin, who claimed to have tried his first drug when he was 52. That was 1992, the year Lakin parlayed a close relationship with the United Transportation Union into a connection with the Bill Clinton presidential campaign.

It was also the year that Lakin beat cancer.

He discovered a lump on his thigh while on a tour of China with Sen. Paul Simon. He credited the Mayo Clinic with saving his life, and his leg.

When Clinton came as president to St. Louis for a $1,000-a-ticket fundraiser in 1996, Trans World Airlines president Jeffrey H. Erickson sat on one side of him, and Lakin on the other.

By that time, Lakin had established himself as one of the most skilled barristers in the St. Louis area, having won tens of millions of dollars in class action and personal injury claims.

He used a lot of his money to support Democratic candidates.

In the past 12 years, Tom Lakin, his son Brad and the Lakin firm have given more than $695,000 to state and local political candidates and causes, according to state records.

That includes $45,500 and a $1,900 party at Busch Stadium for Gov. Rod Blagojevich in 2004.

The Lakins’ contributions included $56,600 plus a $1,100 reception to Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, a Democrat.

His daughter, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, received $66,000 from the Lakins in addition to the $5,695 donation of an airplane for a 2001 campaign fly-around.

Tom and Brad Lakin also have given more than $250,000 together in the last decade to federal campaigns.

Lakin was the son of a construction worker who died when Lakin was 16.

Lakin was a football star at Roxana High School, and he went on to earn a bachelor’s degree at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, working a night shift as a Madison County sheriff’s deputy.

He got his law degree from the University of Louisville and got his first job with Paul Pratt’s law firm in East Alton.

He founded the Wood River firm in 1980 with David R. Herndon, who is now a federal judge.

But by the late 1990s, after his second divorce, Lakin’s life began crumbling.

In a 2002 interview on a Discovery network television program, which focused on plastic surgeries of the rich and famous, Lakin admitted that drugs and alcohol had taken their toll.

He said he was particularly upset to learn his youngest son, Karey, then 16, was also abusing drugs.

"It was devastating to me," he said. "I realized this can’t go any farther."

He checked himself and his son into drug rehab in Southern California.

He proclaimed a rebirth of his interior life that he wanted to match with a surgically enhanced face.

But by late last year, the cocaine monkey was once again on his back, when he announced he was leaving the law firm.

Mother’s claims

The suit alleges that the abuse started in August in Tom Lakin’s ranch-style home in the 200 block of Oakley Place in East Alton.

The suit lists six plaintiffs: two males, their mother and stepfather, and a girl and her mother. All are from the East Alton area and are referred to in the suit by pseudonyms.

In an interview Friday with the Post-Dispatch, the mother of the males said that within two days of learning of the alleged incident she took her younger son to a St. Louis psychologist for counseling.

The mother said that the psychologist, as required by law, notified authorities of a possible crime. Shortly after that, an Illinois State Police investigator contacted the woman, she said.

"He came and interviewed my sons," the woman, 48, said. "And he told us he had interviewed all these other witnesses, getting feedback, but that he wasn’t getting anywhere."

In the course of the investigation, the woman said, her older son, now 23, told police that Lakin had abused him as a minor.

In early April, the woman said, the investigator paid another visit to the family’s home.

"He said he wanted my boy (the 15-year-old) to wear a wire. He wanted to put him on the phone with the women involved, and my first thought was, ‘You want a 15-year-old to bust open your case with a 40-year-old woman?’

"I knew that my son couldn’t stand up to that kind of pressure. It was going to push him over the edge. I said no."

The woman said she has not heard from the investigator since.

Illinois State Police spokesman Rick Hector said Friday that the agency neither confirms nor denies the existence of investigations that don’t result in arrests.

East Alton Police Chief Darren Carlton said his department was never contacted regarding the allegations. So did Madison County State’s Attorney Bill Mudge.

Lakin sued woman

The suit alleges that when Brad Lakin found out the abuse allegations, he tried to persuade the parents involved to seek treatment for the children in Canada to avoid mandatory reporting requirements that exist in most states. The suit alleges that Brad Lakin committed civil conspiracy by doing so.

It also claims Brad and Kris Lakin destroyed evidence at Tom Lakin’s home and then arranged the immediate sale of the house on Oakley Place.

The woman said she worked for Lakin for 18 years. She said they had a falling out over what she said was Lakin’s interest in her daughter, and the woman quit the firm in 2002.

Lakin, the suit contended, "Demonstrated an unusual interest in the minor daughter, including the giving of expensive gifts and trips and making arrangements to be present on vacations where the child was present without the protection of her mother."

After she quit the firm, Lakin filed several suits against the woman, accusing her of being "a drug abuser and unfit mother."

Lakin’s suits seek the return of property, including a house and a car, that Lakin claimed belong to him.

The suit against the Lakins was filed last month in Madison County under seal by attorneys Ed Unsell of East Alton and Thomas Keefe of Swansea. They withdrew it May 5, and it was unsealed on Friday by Chief Circuit Judge Ann Callis. Unsell said the suit will be refiled soon.

Adam Jadhav and Kevin McDermott of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.

phampel@post-dispatch.com | 618-659-3639