McHenry County Blog

Johanna Dietrich’s column about Harry Aleman appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times on April 2, 2013.

In the Epilogue of his new book “Chicago Confidential,” former State rep. and Senator Roger Keats says he has “changed the names to protect the guilty.”

Former Illinois State Rep. and State Senator Roger Keats

The book is an insider’s look at political corruption in Chicago and Illinois.

If you have read it in the newspapers since the 1970′s, a reference probably appears in his book.

Two references came up today that are included in the book.

The first was about the crooked Judge Frank Wilson, the man who let mob murderer Harry Aleman off from a murder charge in 1977.  Twenty years later, when Aleman was tried for a second time for murder, former mob lawyer Robert Cooley testified he delivered a $10,000 bribe to Wilson.

The judge’s decision in 1977 was so blatantly absurd that State Rep. Roscoe Cunningham and I introduced a resolution asking the Judicial Inquiry Board to investigate Judge Wilson.

You can imagine what happened to that effort.

Wilson did kill himself in 1990.

As did then ex-Judge Allen Rosin, a crooked ex-divorce court judge who shot himself right before he was scheduled to be indicted in 1987.

Wilson and Rosin only get referenced in passing in the 459-page book by the Republican who went down to defeat in his last campaign, one for President of the Cook County Board.

He moved to Texas the next year.

And wrote a “good-bye” letter that still gets hits.

I thought the story would have more in it about Springfield, but Keats, probably accurately, focuses only on how Springfield helps people get and keep power in Chicago.

The cover of “Chicago Confidential.”

And he is ahead of the curve in his major plot line–a Mexican cartel operating in Chicago.

Lots of shootouts, death, mayhem, mutilation and kinky sex.

It it were a movie, it would be X-rated.

The bullet holes and blood on the cover are understated, if anything.

But they match the picture of bullet holes accompanying the Associated Press article this week about Mexican cartels establishing footholds in United States cities, including Chicago.

So, what happens when a Mexican cartel comes up against the major black gang in Chicago?

“There ain’t nothin’ on the level. You just have to ask who wants what and then who is getting what and work backwards from there,” the major character in Roger Keats’ book states.

And what is the relationship of the cartel with the biggest Latino and black gangs, both of whom deal drugs supplied by the cartel?

How does Keats see the two local ethnic drug selling gangs relating to each other?

Do Chicago gangs really control Chicago Aldermen (or “Alderthings,” as I remember hearing now-Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky mutter while walking out of the House chambers when she and I served there)?

Do gang members serve as election judges?

Do gang members go from precinct to precinct voting under names of people who should not be on the voter rolls?

Keats surely paints a picture where one (at least if one is a Republican) wants to believe they do.

Does the Illinois House Speaker (named Burke in the book, but who has a daughter who is Attorney General) really use state funds and Federal (stimulus) money to keep Chicago politicians under his thumb.

“You can’t make this stuff up,” Keats writes again and again in the Epilogue.

The heroes are honest cops.

And attorney Terry Hake plays himself in Operation Greylord, even though Keats moves is up from 1990.

What does the cartel do to get the policemen who won’t toe the Chicago line?

You’ll have to buy the book to find out.

It’s for sale at ChicagoConfidentialTheBook.com.

One of these motorcyclists riding past our house on Lake Avenue doesn't seem to be wearing a helmet. His choice.

I see that the mandatory motorcycle helmet folks are back.

The Chicago Sun-Times editorialized about passage last November and I saved the piece to remind me to write this article.

Back in 1975, James “Bud” Washburn of Morris was Republican leader of a very diminished post-Watergate election Republican minority.

I was in my second term and pretty everyone left standing–76 out of 177–was named a Republican Committee Spokesman. I rated the Motor Vehicles Committee.

Motorcyclist leaving Skinner driveway wearing a helmet. His choice.

I had served on it before when Pete Papas of Rock Island.  He was indicted by then U.S. Attorney Jim Thompson along with maybe four others.

They were members of the Motor Vehicle Laws Commission.

I learned about that entity when the committee held an industry-paid for dinner in the lower level of the Mansion View Inn.

That was the motel across from the Executive Mansion that Paul Powell is reputed to have owned while he was Secretary of State and in which his employees were told to stay if they came to Springfield.

In any event, Committee Chairman Pappas used the event to tell the newcomers how his committee was run.

He said that if the Motor Vehicles Laws Commission reviewed bills and if that group recommended a bill it was OK to vote for it.

Freshman Skinner raised his hand and told him I had agreed to co-sponsor a bill that would come to our committee to eliminate the need to have a driver’s license application notarized.

“I don’t want to tell you how to vote, but if the Motor Vehicle Laws Commission has recommended the bill, it’s OK to vote for it,” Pappas said.

Glencoe Democratic Party reformer Harold Katz had already put me on as a co-sponsor the bill.   I told Pappas that.

“I don’t want to tell you how to vote, but if the Motor Vehicle Laws Commission has recommended the bill, it’s OK to vote for it,” Pappas repeated.

Seemed strange.

That first year in the General Assembly I had a lot of bills and was often running from committee to committee presenting them, while trying to attend the meetings of committees on which I served.

The Motor Vehicle Committee met in the Capitol where the press room now is located.

I remember rushing in one day while a committee vote was in progress.  I asked McHenry
County’s Democrat Tom Hanahan, first elected on the bed sheet ballot in 1964, what the bill was about.  He told me and I voted for it.

To the dismay of Chairman Pappas.

If looks could kill, I would have been a one-termer.

Katz and I also managed to get the bill out of committee.

Without opposition I see from the Digest listing below.

Even though the Motor Vehicle Laws Commission had not pre-approved it.

The stupid requirement that one find a notary to pay on car license applications is no longer law.  What sense could it make to accept hundreds of dollars to pay income taxes without a notarization, but make people find a notary to pay maybe ten bucks to get a new license plate?

The bill to repeal the requirement to notarize one car license plate payments was repealedi 1973.

Turns out everyone who served on the Motor Vehicle Laws Commission got indicted, except Henderson County self-made man Clarence Neff.  Here are the details.  They are by Mike Lawrence, who was later Governor Jim Edgar’s press secretary, not to mention a policy adviser.  If you want to read about corruption when I was starting my legislative career, this is the story to read.

During Thanksgiving week in 2010 this editorial ran in the Chicago Sun-Times.

But, back to motorcycle helmets.

I was approached by Ed Armstrong of Fox River Grove.  He was a member of ABATE, a motorcycle lobbying group.  He was also an engineer and proud owner of an old Triumph.  (Later, he served on the FRG village board.)

He filled a helmet with plaster and dropped it from head height.  The plaster shattered.

His argument was two-fold

1. that the helmet provided precious protection and
2. that people ought to be able to decide whether or not to wear a helmet without state law mandating it

But Secretary of State Alan Dixon and Governor Dan Walker’s Department of Transportation wanted the helmet bill out of committee.

We defeated the bill in committee, despite its being sponsored by State Rep. Gerry Shea, Mayor Richard J. Daley’s man in the House, despite his being from Riverside.

I had an intern from McHenry that year whose name escapes me right now.

His job every day was to look for bills on the calendar onto which a helmet amendment might be attached.

This was back in the days when legislators didn’t have to play “Mother, may I?” with the Speaker.

The parking lot from which this photo was taken was filled with motorcyles attending an anti-helmet rally. State reps. looked at them through the windows on their chamber on the third floor of the south wing of the Capitol.

Bill Redmond, a Democrat from DuPage County, beat Clyde Choate, a Democrat from Paul Powell “I can smell the mean a-cookin’” country in Southern Illinois, on the 93rd ballot.

Amendments didn’t have to be approved by a Speaker Mike Madigan and sent to committee for consideration.  Any amendment could be filed and had to be considered before the bill could be moved from Second Reading (the amendment stage of the legislative process) to Third Reading (the stage when passage was voted upon).

No amendment ever popped up, but we knew any day it could.

ABATE members continued to contact legislators, as the group became more and more organized.

They planned a rally in Springfield on the Sunday after session was supposed to adjourn.  Adjournment date was traditionally June 30th, because that was the day before which bills had to be passed in order to take effect immediately upon signature or, if an immediate effective date clause were not in a bill, on January 1st of the next year.

The General Assembly went into overtime that year.  We saw the 4th of July Fireworks from the House windows, if memory serves me correctly.

Then the first Sunday of July, motorcycles filled the parking lot south of the Stratton Building.  Little did they know, no one would have noticed had the legislature adjourned on time.

Of course, House members could see them.

From the comments made to me on the House floor, I knew a powerhouse lobby had been reached maturity.

A regular commenter offers the following about the state of Illinois politics:

I thought I’d feel ??? good ??? over Blago being found guilty after all this time.

That balloon popped when I was back in reality.

He’s just one in a line of many coming and going who do the same darned thing.

They’re all hotshots.

They get fame, praise, bucks, and some of them get caught.

But, in the world of everyday, these folks are cutting deals left and right.

Ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich on the way through the microphones and cameras to his front door.

We tell our children not to lie, cheat, steal.

We teach them that their wiggle room answers to who they’re going out with, where, when, etc. are wrong/lies.

Then “we” show them what we do and tell them to NOT do as we do but as we tell them to do.

What line did this or that word cross?

Was it right to “trade” this or that – especially Chicago, Illinois style?

Too many of them think it’s right.

And We elect them since in our own little worlds we too often cross some line.

owing something just isn’t fully straight up, we do it anyway.

Keeping extra change from a cashier. Not bringing an under ring up to the attention of a cashier.

Wiggles here and wiggles there until it reaches the big time.

And no amount ever seems to be enough.

There is always the lure as to what they can get away with at the top or in the middle…just one more buck, one more deal to set them up for life.

Throwing everyone else and integrity under the bus and then being surprised that people thought it was wrong.

Giant EGO Sandwich anyone?

Human beings – wonderful at times and jerks and users the next.

Using the excuse that this somehow makes us survivors instead of better people.

Somewhere right now in McHenry County or in some School District or in some union – people are being crookedly sly or intimidating today.

Secret meetings that come just shy of being illegal, intended to work around the intent of the law.

I realize that this is one fish down – one fish that cost TAXPAYERS a lot of time, grief, money and made us laughing stocks across the planet (if anyone still cares).

And he’ll probably walk in under ten years even though some say he could be hit for far more based on the charges.

I’m also tired of him talking about his “little daughters”. He should have thought about that before.

Yesterday, a high school classmate of former State Rep. and State Senator Roger Keats commented on the Illinois politician’s moving to Texas.

Another Florida expatriate left a comment that I would like to share more broadly.

Here’s his take on why people are leaving Illinois:

Blue Ribbon in Crook county

I’m a Florida ex-pat, too. Lived in Evanston, too. Graduated high school from ETHS, too.

And moved to McHenry County in 1980 to escape Crook County Politics, considered McHenry County my home.

In 2010, after having had enough of corrupt Illinois Democrats and the crooks running the state, I moved to Florida.

I “voted with my feet” as they say, just as many in Eastern Europe did before the Soviet Union imposed the “iron curtain” to contain the exodus.

The financial situation in Illinois is grave.

Illinois (says the Illinois State Bar Association’ and ABA) is fighting ex-pat residency of high wage earners, in order to retain their income taxes. Illinois is try claiming the income taxes of people who leave Illinois using any flimsy pretext they can find.

Like their Soviet Union/Communist cousins, today’s progressives and IL Democrats. deep down, abhor liberty.

The Constitution prohibits Illinois from forbidding people from leaving – so look for the state to do whatever they can to “stem the flow” of other people “voting with their feet,” or to otherwise retain the dollars these people will not longer be paying to Illinois.

Trying to challenge residency in order to tax “rich” ex-pats is just the opening gambit.

There’s a real, understandable, reason that Illinois is losing population to the sunbelt – and congressional representation.

It’s the CORRUPTION, STUPID!

Really.

Does that mean U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is slacking off.

Based on Federal convictions only the Daily Beast has come up with a list of the ten most corrupt states.

The Daily Beast has compared corruption in the fifty states, plus the District of Columbia.
Here’s what Clark Merrefield and Lauren Streib looked at:

1. Public corruption, 1998—2008: Convictions of elected and other public officials investigated by federal agents over an 11-year period, from the Department of Justice.
2. Racketeering and Extortion, 1998—2008: Code for organized crime convictions, also investigated by federal agents over an 11-year period, from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
3. Forgery and Counterfeiting, 1999—2008: Arrest numbers for producing or distributing fake money and goods over a 10-year period, from the FBI.
4. Fraud, 1999—2008: Arrests for false statements or documents produced for personal gain over a 10-year period, from the FBI.
5. Embezzlement, 1999—2008: Arrests for surreptitious theft of money over a 10-year period, from the FBI.

The two did a lot of work.

Remember, the ranking is not about political corruption. It is more broad-based.

Of course, considering the lack of inclusion of local convictions—which would have been way to much work to discover—you’d think Illinois would have a higher corruption ranking.

Ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his wife Patti appear on TV the day he was convicted of lying to the FBI.

How could Illinois be ranked as the the fourth cleanest state among the 50, plus the District of Columbia?

Talk about a new paradigm.

Here are the Illinois details:

• Public Corruption: 16
• Racketeering & Extortion: 18
• Fraud Rank: 46
• Forgery & Counterfeiting: 50
• Embezzlement: 51

Here’s the U.S. Attorney’s press release:

CITY INSPECTOR CONVICTED OF BRIBERY IN PROBE OF CROOKED PERMITS

CHICAGO — A federal jury today convicted a City of Chicago building inspector of federal bribery charges for accepting two $1,000 cash bribes from a cooperating contractor and demanding two $2,000 cash bribes from developers to approve inspections at residential and commercial construction sites, federal law enforcement officials and the city’s Inspector General announced today.  Evidence at the trial, which began Monday, showed that defendant, Jose Hernandez, solicited or obtained cash bribes totaling tens of thousands of dollars from contractors, developers and homeowners since at least 2005.  The jury deliberated about six hours yesterday and today before finding Hernandez guilty on all four counts of bribery that were brought against him last year.

Hernandez, 47, of Chicago, a building inspector since 1988, faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each count.  U.S. District Judge David Coar scheduled sentencing on Dec. 14.  Hernandez is the 15th city inspector and the 19th defendant overall to be convicted as part of a federal corruption investigation, code-named Operation Crooked Code.  A total of 27 defendants, including 17 city inspectors, have been charged since the investigation became public in 2007.

The trial evidence showed that Hernandez had a corrupt relationship with a permit “expediter” since approximately late 2005, and with a contractor since 2007, both of whom have been cooperating in the investigation.  Hernandez accepted a $1,000 bribe from the cooperating contractor on Aug. 21, 2008, when Hernandez performed what’s known as a “rough inspection” — an inspection of the framing, electrical wiring, plumbing and ventilation ducts before the interior walls are sealed — at a single-family residence in the 9900 block of South Throop in Chicago.  At the time of the inspection, the interior walls were covered with drywall, rendering a legitimate inspection impossible, but Hernandez signed the building permit, saying “rough frame approved.”

Hernandez also accepted $1,000 from the same contractor on Aug. 10, 2009, to approve a residential rough inspection in the 700 block of West Cornelia.  He was also convicted of demanding $2,000 bribes from two different developers to not issue stop work orders at commercial buildings at 650 North Dearborn in June 2007 and at 11250 South Michigan in April 2006.

The conviction was announced by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Thomas P. Brady, Postal Inspector-in-Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Chicago; Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Joseph Ferguson, Inspector General for the City of Chicago.

Anyone with information about alleged corruption in the city permit process is encouraged to contact the City Inspector General’s Office either through their hotline – (866) 448-4754, or through their web site at www.chicagoinspectorgeneral.org

The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys April Perry and Steven Grimes.

Tis would have been the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times if the Black Hawks had not won the Stanley Cup.

Those of you who are more interested in politics than hockey knew that testimony in Governor Rod Blagojevich’s corruption trial got started yesterday.

But you couldn’t tell from the ten o’clock news.

It was non-stop Black Hawk Stanley Cup celebration time.

The front page of the Chicago Sun-Times did not read,

A LESSON IN
CORRUPTION

on the newsstands.

One had to go inside to find that.

And nothing in the Tribune except a page three story about some guy getting Blagojevich’s face tattooed on his thigh until one gets to page 6!

So, the politicians of Illinois lucked out.

Less obvious guilt by association that way.

There is still that incumbent problem, however, as the Tribune points out on page 15.

Back in the 1970′s I put in a request to the Legislative Council (the General Assembly’s non-partisan research agency) to develop a way to compare corruption among the states.

That was when United States Attorney Jim Thompson was convicting lots of Democrats and Republicans or assorted nastinesses.

Thompson was my last candidate for political hero. I didn’t get disillusioned until after the election. I was sitting in my car on the senate driveway listening to the radio.

Thompson was asked if he were going to keep Governor Dan Walker’s Ford. His reply was,

“No. What do you think this job is all about?”

Later, he came up with something that sounded a bit more reasonable. He needed a limo because of his long legs.

Under pressure, he finally settled for a Checker Cab…painted black, of course.

Anyway, my request was considered for a while and then Gerry Gherardini called to tell me they didn’t think that was an appropriate research topic.

I remember going to my fifth reunion at Oberlin College In 1970 and asking a new government profession about research in corruption.

He pretty much pooh-poohed my question, telling me that corruption was the grease that allowed government to operation.

Since then, I’ve seen a fair amount of research on the topic. Then, it was pretty much a virgin topic.

In any event, a month ago I happened upon this in the Rockford Register:

Most corrupt state? Illinois a leader in the competition

It’s not something that compares corruption, but at least its headline is asking the right question.

Island Lake pig farmer Bob Wargaski. he who fought and beat “city hall,” lives outside the village limits, but obviously has “had it up to here” with the way the incumbents have run things there.

He commissioned the cartoon you see with the message

He clearly hopes that Island Lake voters “clean house.”

In the pot are

• Mayor Tom Hyde, whom the Daily Herald compared to Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, before he was arrested for forgery,
• Village Trustee Rich Garling, the Democrat who ran against GOP State Rep. Mark Beaubien last year, now facing battery charges, and
• Debbie Herrmann, who is running for Hyde’s job.

Wargaski offers the following advice to voters, which is not limited to Island Lake’s:

“Even in times of uncertainty, you still live in the greatest democracy of the world.

“Embedded in the foundation that our predecessors created, is the opportunity for citizens to choose their governing leaders.

“It is all citizens’ responsibility to know the integrity, creed and qualifications of those they elect to represent them.

“As you approach your opportunity to exercise your voting rights, make sure you educate yourself on those candidates seeking to lead your local government.

“Are they qualified?

“Do they conduct themselves with integrity? Are they knowledgeable?

“Are they willing to seek the truth?

“You don’t want to elect those with a self-serving credo.

“Your choice will have lasting ramifications on your community.

“One way or another, you will be directly affected by those who are handed the scepter of power, good or bad.

“Long ago my grandfather said to me, ‘Listen to the mouth, but watch the feet, it is a dead giveaway to who the person really is.’”

Click to enlarge the cartoon or the picture of Bob Wargaski using his hand as a gun like two Island Lake village officials said “threatening” tee shirt wearing Vietnam Veteran Greg Kachka before they had him arrested.

= = = =
In the group shot was taken the day Fox News was in Island Lake to interview Greg Kachka. On Kachks’s flag-bedecked front lawn are Laurie Rabattini, who has the “What’s happening in Island Lake?” blog and running for village board, her finance, who was filming also, Rob Rekosiewicz, Tom Martin, a former trustee who wife is running for village clerk Bob Wargaski pointing with his unloaded hand, Dave Labuz, and Teresa and Village Trustee John Ponio, who is running for village president, plus homeowner Kachka, who is also running for village trustee. The village trustee candidate on the slate that Wargaski is supporting who is missing from the photo is local contractor Dwaine Schaal, whose family has been a part of Island Lake since its beginning. He’s interested in cleaning up the corruption in Island Lake.

My Saturday article and Marathon Pundit’s on the same day were not the only Illinois-based musings on the corruption fighting credentials of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and U.S. Senator Barack Obama.

When I got the Sunday Chicago Tribune, John Kass wrote on the same theme.

Here’s the end of his column, which squarely identifies the contrast on fighting corruption:

“And all weekend, analysts will define Palin by gender, guns, her opposition to abortion, her Obama-like inexperience. Since most talking heads are themselves Beltway insiders, they might miss the point as they did with Obama:

“It’s the political reform, stupid!

“The young Alaska Republican put her political career on the line by challenging the corrupt, old Alaskan Republican bulls on their sleazy pay-for-play politics and their use of the public trust to fill the pockets of their friends. She didn’t merely talk about abstract change in Washington. She challenged corruption at home, challenged her own party bosses—some of whom are already in prison—at great risk to her political future.

“It is something I’ve begged and begged Obama to do with the ham-fisted pols in Chicago and Illinois—to not merely talk about change far away, but to take a principled stand even if that stand runs counter to his political interests at home; to challenge the thugs of his own party, to give us a reason to believe he’s the man he says he is. He has politely declined.

“In this, Obama obviously has more experience than Palin.”

Again, I ask supporters of Democratic Party presidential candidate and former Illinois State Senator Barack Obama to share with us in the comment section below what Obama did to fight corruption in the Illinois Democratic Party.

I’ve been waiting since Saturday and no one has taken up the challenge.

The comment section below awaits your defense.