When politically connected Aidan E. Monahan was indicted in July, 2007, I looked at who he had made political contributions to.

Just looking at the biggest contributions one can find $108,000 to the state party run by House Speaker Mike Madigan, $27,000 to Michael Madigan, $25,000 to Lisa Madigan, Dick Mell’s 33rd Ward Organization $10,000 and Rod Blagojevich $5,000.

This guy was politically connected with a capital “P.”

And the landscaping company had a location in Algonquin:

When Monahan’s indictment was unveiled it was described as a plan to defraud and obtain money, “including Minority Business Enterprise contracts calling for payments in excess of $1.5 million,” from the Chicago Public Schools.

During the first three years of this century, Manahan won the Chicago Public School contract to do landscaping for the entire system. His company was paid over $8.5 million.

After 2003, a bidding process was set up that required companies to be owned and operated by minorities or women in order to bid on several regional areas.

From the description of the scheme, it sounds as if the president of Company A, later revealed to be run by retired Chicago Bear Roland Harper played little more than a courier role, taking mail about the contract to Monahan for processing.

Then a second Algonquin connection showed up:

It turns out that minority front man Harper lives in Algonquin on Westbourne Parkway, assuming he listed his home address of a $200 political contribution to Republican Cook County Commissioner Allan Carr in 2001.

Harper’s trucking company Rohar gave Governor Rod Blagojevich $1,000 almost on election day, 2006. He made a 2005 personal contribution to Statesman of the Year State & Local PAC.

This week Harper was sentenced.

read the Chicago Sun-Times headline.

Harper was sentenced to a year of home confinement.

Sentencing judge John Harrah revealed Harper had cooperated extensively with government investigators.

The former bear apologized.

He could have received up to 20 years in prison.

Monahan was sentenced in April to 41 months in prison and is serving his time now the Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Center. Sometimes folks are incarcerated there because the U.S. Attorney’s Office wants to be able to contact them easily.