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| BEAVERS: Wants to be free |
For
what it’s worth, Beavers’ attorneys have filed documents in court saying they
really believe the one-time cop turned alderman turned county board member
ought not to do any prison time.
THEY
HAVE SAID he ought to get probation. It also seems, if reports from WLS-TV
newscasts are accurate, that Beavers is still persisting with his train of
thought that he is being persecuted (as well as prosecuted) by the federal
government.
He
claims he was only prosecuted on the income tax evasion charges (connected to
how he used money from his campaign funds for personal use) because he would
not provide federal investigators with information about former county board
President Todd Stroger and Commissioner John Daley, D-Chicago.
Perhaps
the self-described “hog” thinks he’s about to become a political prisoner along
the lines of Martin Luther King, Jr., or Gandhi? A bit self-righteous, we all
must admit. I doubt Beavers is capable of writing anything as eloquent as King's letter from the Birmingham jail.
Yet
the U.S. Attorney’s office for Chicago has suggested that Beavers serve just
under two years (which they will persist in describing as 21 months because it
sounds more imposing that way) in a prison facility.
NO
MATTER HOW much one thinks that Beavers is full of himself and trying to spin
his story to make himself the hero, we must also remember that the federal
government is just as capable of doing the same.
They’re
going to present the most onerous account possible to ensure the longest prison
term possible. Because that will allow for a prosecutor to put another notch on
his record (and yes, I have known prosecutors at the federal and state level
who think in such terms – like they’re fighter pilots counting down the number
of enemy planes shot down).
It
is why I’m always willing to give a criminal defendant a bit of a break when
hearing the rhetoric being spun against him by prosecutors at any level.
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| MEDRANO: Headed back, but for how long? |
That’s
certainly the case involving former Alderman Ambrosio Medrano, who on Tuesday
entered a “guilty” plea to a wire fraud charge related to his involvement in
negotiations on a contract for bandages used at Stroger Hospital.
THE
CHICAGO TRIBUNE reported that when Medrano comes up for sentencing in January,
prosecutors may ask for something resembling a 20-year prison term for the
59-year-old man.
Medrano’s
attorneys, however, told the newspaper that something along the line of two
years (about what Beavers could receive on Wednesday) is more appropriate.
U.S.
District Judge Gary Feinerman told Medrano he needed to consider the great
difference in opinion before deciding whether he should enter a “guilty” plea,
saying, “You understand there is a dramatically different view of what the guidelines
will be?”
Somehow,
I suspect Medrano is going to get slammed in a way worse than anything that
befalls Beavers. For Medrano is also the one who holds a unique niche in the
world of government corruption – the repeat offender.
HE
DID A prison term following his conviction in the “Operation Silver Shovel”
federal investigation of City Hall in the 1990s. Now, he’s likely to go back to
prison for this and for another conviction earlier this year for allegedly
being involved in paying off an official for a mail-order pharmaceutical
contract with the Cook County hospital system.
Because
even though he couldn’t get himself re-elected to office after his first conviction
and prison term, he was still involved in the inner-workings of government at the
county level.
If
anything, it perhaps is evidence that the people in politics we ought most
being paying attention to are those whose names don’t appear on the ballot and
rely on their relative anonymity to have people ignore their actions.
Although,
still, a 20-year to 2-year difference in opinion isn’t all that different from
the notion of Beavers thinking he should still be free, while the feds thinking
he’s entitled to an “Oxford education” – as in a prison term served at the
federal facility in Oxford, Wis.
-30-
1 comment:
As a product of Chicago's Southside I've always believed the "Chicago way" was invented not from mobsters but the State's Attorney's office in general. I strongly agree with your analogy of the Fighter Pilot. Each States Attorney in my lifetime uses its powers to basically go after non-violent offenders (mostly white-collar) and impose sentences that are to the most part inhumane.Especially of those who have served the people of our State and City with gust and most instances have gone out of their way to make an even playing field for people of color. (yeah I said it). Thus after so many notches, they go onto become politicians. While, drug traders, killers, and repeat domestic violence offenders continue to receive sentences that deter evidently no one because all continue to grow. And if I know this, the politicians of color should know they have to stop thinking the "white way" and return to thinking the "right way". We should always be under the impression that has held this city to it's image of you're taking the job an O'Leary, Callahan, McDuffy (you get what I'm saying).And thus, you will always be under the eye-glass and punished twice as hard for less.
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