EXTRA: From Donald Trump down to Burger King, the deals that exist in Chi

If you think about it too long, it becomes pathetically laughable.

BURKE: An ultimate petty political scam

Edward M. Burke, who is about to hit the 50-year mark in terms of his service on the City Council, faces criminal indictment because of deals his law firm did connected to a Burger King franchise that wanted to operate in his neighborhood.

THAT'S RIGHT, BURGER King. As in the makers of the Whopper who used to challenge McDonald's by giving us the chance to "have it your way" when eating a hamburger. Most definitely NOT Donald Trump.

It seems the operators of a Burger King franchise at 4060 S. Pulaski Rd. had plans for remodeling the place, and that effort was going to require permits issued by City Hall. Those people were advised to hire their legal counsel from Burke's law firm to ensure the process was done correctly.

Then, it is alleged that a company executive was advised how it would be advantageous to their interests to make a campaign contribution that Burke would then pass along to other political people. News reports on Thursday indicated that mayoral hopeful Toni Preckwinkle was meant to be the recipient of the money.

The U.S. Attorney's office, however, is viewing all this behavior as criminal; hence the criminal complaint made public Thursday that files one count of attempted extortion. Although I can easily envision how political operatives will argue this charge is an attempt to criminalize the political process.

TRUMP: So much for taking down president

REMEMBER HOW SOME people were getting all hyped up over the idea that Burke was somehow under investigation because of his ties to Donald Trump in pre-presidential days, back when he was trying to get City Hall to approve the construction of his monstrosity of a namesake building along the Chicago River? Which even Trump himself has complained about.

We had some seriously drooling at the very thought of a political scandal connecting da Hall to the White House -- and one that could take down Trump as well! Not quite. Not even close.

The new preferred 'fast food' of the City Hall set?

Instead, it seems that all that really was at stake was someone trying to do a remodeling so that you could eat a Whopper in slightly-less-grungy conditions the next time you happened to be in that particular neighborhood.

And that Burger King franchise now gets a further bit of notoriety, as early news reports noted it was the same place where Laquan McDonald was walking past on that date in 2014 when he was shot dead by police for ignoring their demand that he stop his erratic behavior.

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Evidence of time’s passage; Gov. Ryan gets his dues, What about Blagojevich?

Some people are going to be determined to go to their deathbeds shrieking and screaming about how corrupt George Ryan was, how abhorrent his time as Illinois governor was, and how we can “never forget!” the wrongs he did upon us.

RYAN: To be included in Kankakee tribute

But time really has a way of making everything wither away with its passage.

I COULDN’T HELP but notice the officials in Kankakee who recently approved erection of a new memorial on the grounds of the county courthouse – it’s meant to pay tribute to the three local men who later went on to become governor of Illinois.

Those three will include Ryan – who managed to offend many conservative ideologues with his one-term performance as governor, but who committed acts while serving as Illinois secretary of state that eventually got him into legal trouble and resulted in him serving a six-year stint at the work camp that is part of the federal correctional center in Terre Haute, Ind.

The monument itself would actually be paid for by the Woman’s Club of Kankakee, but governmental approval was needed to put it on public property.

Some people locally are upset, but it seems a majority is more than willing to move on and accept the fact that Ryan served a term – and is one of the few local (from Kankakee) residents to ever be Illinois’ chief executive.

SMALL: When last time you heard his name?

AS FURTHER EVIDENCE that time passing manages to assuage everything and everyone, I haven’t heard anyone make mention of the fact that another person whose name will be on the monument – Len Small from 1921 to 1929 – also had legal issues during his time as governor.

Small actually went on trial for actions occurring when he was state treasurer (embezzlement, as in state funds were deposited into a phony bank account), but he was acquitted.

Although there were tales of how that acquittal came about solely because of jury tampering – as in several members of the Small jury later were given government jobs.

But that’s nearly a century ago. I’m sure all who could remember are long gone. And perhaps those still living are wondering if it’s their mind fizzling out.

SHAPIRO: Replaced a corrupt pol?

ALTHOUGH IF YOU want to get technical, the third person to be put on the Kankakee monument (Samuel Shapiro, from 1968-69) also could have a taint of scandal.

Not that Shapiro himself did anything suspect. But he was the man who finished out the gubernatorial term of Otto Kerner – who gave up his Executive Mansion post to become a federal judge. Which is what he was when federal prosecutors went after him on criminal charges.

Quite a colorful contribution of characters to Illinois’ story, even though if you listen to certain people, it is only the city of Chicago proper that contributes all of the taint to Illinois’ public reputation.

Yet now it will be reduced to a few lines of type etched into stone, one that most likely will merely give off the impression of three “local boys made good” that Kankakee residents of future years will look at for a second or two – before moving on to other pressing business of the future.

A THOUGHT THAT I’m sure will thoroughly offend those people determined to think of George Ryan as the guy who “set all the criminals free” when he took his acts that essentially abolished capital punishment in Illinois.

BLAGOJEVICH: Will his day EVER come?

Preferring to remember instead those secretary of state employees who essentially sold commercial driver’s licenses to the highest bidder; and tried justifying it on the grounds that Ryan put so much pressure on them to buy tickets to fundraising events that they needed the extra money.

Perhaps it all will be forgotten someday, except for certain people who make a point of memorizing the details of every bit of trivia they can burn into their brains.

Just one point to ponder – will this ultimately become the outcome for Rod Blagojevich? Or is his “f---ing golden” line significant enough to warrant him a sense of eternal political infamy?

  -30-

Will ‘da Judge’ buy “Fast Eddie” claim his witnesses are too old to remember?

I understand that Edward R. Vrdolyak has no desire to go to prison.

VRDOLYAK: Trying to get charges dismissed

The one-time Cook County Democratic chairman and City Council member who led the vocal opposition to then-Mayor Harold Washington has already done one stint as a “guest” of the government, and sure doesn’t want to go back there ever again.

BUT I FIND myself intrigued by the line of defense that Vrdolyak is trying to put up for himself.

Vrdolyak spent the bulk of 2011 in a federal prison work camp in Terre Haute, Ind., following his conviction on charges related to real estate transactions in the Gold Coast neighborhood.

Two years ago, he was hit with another round of indictments – for his involvement in the settlement of a national lawsuit against the tobacco industry back in the 1990s. It resulted in a $9.2 billion payout by “Big Tobacco,” and Vrdolyak managed to enrich himself significantly.

So much so that federal prosecutors say he did too well, to the point of being criminal. They use the word “unauthorized” to describe it.

BUT VRDOLYAK CONTENDS he didn’t do anything illegal, and in fact had the blessing of political people (including then-Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan) for his conduct.

WASHINGTON: Eddie's legacy exceed Harold

He’s trying to get a judge to dismiss the charges, with his own attorneys filing motions claiming that the people who could testify under oath that Vrdolyak’s legal activities were truly legitimate aren’t capable of doing so.

They point out one person who was fully aware of Vrdolyak is now dead, while another suffers from severe dementia. A third would be Jim Ryan himself, although the one-time Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate suffers from his own ailments that would make it impossible for him to be called upon to testify.

All this may be true. But I will be amazed if any judge out there would be inclined to dismiss the case on these grounds.

BECAUSE IT WOULD truly create a circumstance where someone could escape the legal system and “justice” because of the passage of time.

RYAN: Could Jim 'clear' Vrdolyak?

And when it comes to Vrdolyak, I’m sure the kind of people most eager to see him obtain another criminal conviction and prison term (one most likely long enough that the 80-year-old would die in prison) will not want to allow for any reason to come up that would let him escape justice.

For the politico known as “Fast Eddie” is the man who will forevermore be remembered for the way he openly led a resistance to Washington’s election in 1983 as the city’s first black mayor.

That was something some people would want forevermore celebrated. The fact that Vrdolyak was able to tie up in knots just about everything Washington tried to accomplish during the first few years of his mayoral term is something they will forevermore be bitter about.

TO THEM, THE only true justice will be if Vrdolyak gains as his political legacy a record of recidivism. To become one of the few people in Chicago political people who wind up with multiple convictions and prison terms would be the only true justice to those individuals.

Seriously, most people with political corruption convictions wind up withering away into nothingness. It would be Vrdolyak and someone like one-time alderman Ambrosio Medrano who would have records of returns to prison.

MEDRANO: In Vrdolyak's league?

But a part of me can’t help but wonder if Vrdolyak’s attorneys have a point about the 20-year delay between the actions and the bringing of an indictment “dramatically, and even fatally hindering (Vrdolyak) from establishing that fact to the jury.”

All of which makes me think no matter how a judge ultimately rules, this is going to be a criminal case that will leave some people seriously p-o’ed about its outcome and complaining for life about the lack of justice.

  -30-

How will the Blagojevich tale end?

It will be interesting to see just how seriously the federal appeals court based in Chicago takes the latest argument made by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich – who desperately wants that 14-year prison sentence he’s serving changed to something he considers more reasonable.
 

BLAGOJEVICH: 7 more years?

Perhaps something like time served?

ATTORNEYS FOR BLAGOJEVICH were at the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, spending about a half-hour arguing why U.S. District Judge James Zagel was wrong when he re-sentenced the former governor to the same prison term that he had originally received when found guilty of various crimes.

Admittedly, the court that found some of the charges he was found guilty of to be improper, but also said that those charges were lesser enough that they didn’t automatically ensure a lesser prison sentence.

That caused Zagel to hand down the same sentence, despite the many letters and statements that Blagojevich’s attorneys had presented to make an argument that the former governor is actually a model inmate at the federal corrections facility in Colorado where he has been held since 2012.

Zagel at the time made a point of saying he disregarded what those people thought about Blagojevich’s conduct while in prison because they did not know him back when he was Illinois’ governor and held a position of power that required people to trust his judgment and conduct.

BLAGOJEVICH’S ATTORNEYS ARGUED on Tuesday that Zagel ought to be required to take those people (many of whom are inmates who have had contact with Blagojevich during his incarceration) and their thoughts into account.

“Judge Zagel dismissed it in effect as being irrelevant,” attorney Michael Nash argued before the appeals court. “It is an important factor that should have been considered. The judge dismissed it out of hand.”

I’m not sure how eager the appeals court will be to decide on what amounts to a judgment call on the part of the trial judge.

ZAGEL: Judging the judge's ruling

Because part of what his job includes is to decide what information that comes up during a trial is relevant, and what is not. In some cases, it is his task to keep lesser details from being blown out of proportion, and irrelevant facts from swaying a verdict one way or the other.

I CAN APPRECIATE why attorneys for Blagojevich are eager to have people say nice things about the man; particularly since here in the outside world – and particularly in that political universe known as Chicagoland – the only talk we hear about the man is negative.

Creating the image of a man who no longer poses a threat to our society, or our political structure, is key to making an argument that the five years Blagojevich already has served in prison is sufficient.

Which, if you want to be totally honest, is more time than most people who get politically-connected criminal convictions wind up getting.

If it were just about anybody else, particularly someone with a less-bloated ego than our former governor had, he’d have got the 18 months at a minimum-security facility and he’d be well on his way to turning into a “Whatever became of …” story.

INSTEAD, BLAGOJEVICH SEEMS determined to live on in our mindset at least until that May 2024 date on which he qualifies for early release – provided he really remains as well-behaved an inmate as his attorneys contend he is.

That means several more appearances in coming years by former first lady Patti trying to claim that her man deserves to be free – does she think she’s becoming Winnie Mandela, who spent those decades her activist husband Nelson was in jail traveling the world to argue for his cause?

PATTI: Speaking out for husband

Calling him an “eternal optimist,” Patti Blagojevich on Tuesday told reporter-types of her husband, “he’s always hoping this is going to come out the way it needs to come out.”

The sad thing is I could see where if THAT outcome were to become reality, it would be the nightmare for many of us in society who wish it were possible that we could just quit paying attention to the Illinois political nonsense of those year that is only topped by the state fiscal stupidity of the current era.

  -30-

An encore in corrections for ‘Fast Eddie” would be a unique outcome

Perhaps it was intended that Edward R. Vrdolyak have his life in the public eye end in a way unlike just about everyone else.
 

VRDOLYAK: Back in the public eye

A return trip to prison, if that is what ultimately occurs, would be something unheard of.

BECAUSE USUALLY WHEN someone on the Chicago political scene gets into legal trouble and winds up with a criminal conviction and prison time, upon their release they manage to fade away and we don’t really hear much about them again.

Just think – how many of us know off the top of our heads whatever became of Larry Bloom or Miriam Santos.

But it seems there’s no way the man known during his time as “Fast Eddie” was going to fade away like that – even though he has been retired for roughly the past decade and probably wishes he weren’t thought about so much anymore.

Vrdolyak was the son of Croatian immigrants from the East Side neighborhood down at Chicago’s far Southeastern corner (where Indiana is a next door neighbor and the smells of the oil refinery in Whiting often waft across the state line) who was elected to the City Council in 1971 and achieved his political peak in the mid-1980s.

HE WAS THE man who realized that many Chicagoans were hostile to the idea of Harold Washington being elected mayor in 1983 – which he used to justify his own blatant resistance to anything the city’s first black mayor tried to achieve. He also banded together 28 other alderman into a caucus that was openly defiant.

 

Someday to be sequel to this headline?

For those of you too young to remember "Council Wars" as we laughingly referred to it back then, think of the way Congress has treated the Barack Obama presidency, only much less polite.

The “Vrdolyak 29” is how it was publicly known, the group that for more than two years did everything it could to make Washington look ridiculous. It took a court-ordered redistricting of City Council ward boundaries to break this up and give the mayor some sort of control over the city.

All I know is that locally in his home neighborhood, there are those people who remain grateful that Vrdolyak kept THAT MAYOR from doing more harm (in their minds) than was actually achieved.

 

Will Harold's backers be able to control laughs?

IN OTHER PARTS of Chicago, there are those people who remain eternally peeved (to put it mildly) that Vrdolyak existed. They were the ones who privately cheered back when the feds got a criminal conviction against him and he wound up serving 10 months in prison (briefly being a fellow inmate with former Gov. George Ryan at the work camp connected to the Terre Haute Correctional Center).

That should have been the end of the Vrdolyak story. But it isn’t. For it seems the feds have come up with a new indictment – criminal charges related to payment for legal work he never actually did and speculation that he didn’t make payments to the Internal Revenue Service that were owed for someone else.

Vrdolyak’s attorneys are saying the money was actually paid into a special account and theoretically are still sitting there waiting for the IRS to come collecting. Not that the IRS is buying such an excuse.

Vrdolyak is now facing charges (for which he will make his first court appearance two days before Thanksgiving) for which he could face up to an eight-year prison term. An encore performance in the Bureau of Prisons! A political recidivist.

THAT WOULD GIVE Vrdolyak a unique niche in our political culture. Off the top of my head, former alderman Ambrosio Medrano is the only return case I can think of.

 

MEDRANO: Also doing a sequel to serving time

The alderman is now serving a 10 ½-year prison sentence for a deal involving bribes connected to a contract for selling bandages to Stroger Hospital, which came after he had already served prison time – just over two years for his role in the Operation Silver Shovel investigation at City Hall back in the mid-1990s.

But if a return to prison is meant to be Vrdolyak’s fate (his backers can’t believe that any charge is being sought for actions so old), that would be quite the outcome for the man who once defied Harold Washington, saying famously, “It’s a racial thing, don’t kid yourself,...We’re fighting to keep the city the way it is.”

Which is why some people now will take great pleasure if it turns out that a 78-year-old man like Vrdolyak winds up ending his life sitting in a cell somewhere.

  -30-

EXTRA: Supreme Court can’t be bothered to hear Rod Blagojevich pleas

It really shouldn’t be a surprise – the Supreme Court of the United States usually hears arguments on about 100 of the thousands of appeals it receives each year.

BLAGOJEVICH: From back in better days

Meaning most people who have dreams of the Supreme Court ruling in their favor and overturning some lower court’s “mistake” wind up disappointed.

COUNT AMONG THE disappointed one federal corrections center inmate named Rod Blagojevich – who currently is about four years into a 14-year prison sentence for some of his actions committed while serving as Illinois governor.

The high court reportedly gave the Blagojevich case a cursory review, decided there were no great legal issues that needed to be resolved, and therefore no need for the court to give it any public attention.

No hearings. Definitely no ruling. The court let stand the ruling of the Court of Appeals based in Chicago – which was the one that struck down five of Blagojevich’s criminal convictions, but also implied that the remaining convictions were severe enough that they could still warrant the lengthy prison sentence he received.

There are those who dream that Blagojevich’s prison sentence could be significantly reduced to something like about four years – which, coincidentally, is the amount of prison time already served.

THAT WOULD BE the nightmare for many others – the idea of Blagojevich returning to Chicago for a re-sentencing hearing and learning that his prison time is done!

Not likely to happen. Because my prediction is that Blagojevich gets a year knocked off the overall sentence. With early release for good behavior (which isn’t much in the federal correctional system), he could be free by 2023.

Another seven years without Milorod in our presence. Although I suspect the only person who truly will miss him will be one-time Illinois first lady Patti Blagojevich.

Although Judge James Zagel will make the final decision on Blagojevich’s fate when he holds the re-sentencing hearing – which has yet to be scheduled. Something we all get to look forward to.

I DO HAVE to admit one potential disappointment in the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the Blagojevich case.

What if the legal merits had caused a split in the high court that would have resulted in a 4-4 decision? One in which the current vacancy caused by the Senate’s refusal to consider President Barack Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland to the court became an issue.

Because a 4-4 decision would mean a failure to get five justices – it would mean upholding the Court of Appeals’ decision, and nothing would change.

Somehow I suspect the now-greyed Blagojevich would get a kick out of the ability to cause such chaos with his legal case. While the rest of us are on the verge of forgetting that the man ever existed – we’ve moved on to new layers of political people (Rauner or Madigan, depending on one’s partisan hang-ups) whom we’d like to see incarcerated!

  -30-

EXTRA: Jones off the ballot, Medrano off to prison. Both off to nowhereland

For those of you who didn’t notice my mention of Republican gubernatorial hopeful Peter Edward Jones in a recent commentary, never mind. You can formally forget all about him – at least until he tries to run another token campaign for office.

MEDRANO: Down for the count, again!

The State Board of Elections officially kicked him off the ballot – meaning that the Republican field of candidates who want to challenge Gov. Pat Quinn in the Nov. 4 general election is now down to the four blowhards you actually have heard of.

ALSO REMOVED WERE Armen Alvarez and William Lee, who both wanted to run as Republicans against Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. That field of people likely to get beaten up electorally by Durbin is down to state Sen. James Oberweis, R-Sugar Grove, and Doug Truax, who owns a risk consulting firm and likes to make mention of the fact he attended West Point!

But they are not the only ones who will no longer be part of the political scenery.

Take Ambrosio Medrano, the one-time City Council member who got put away years ago on a political corruption rap and served a prison sentence.

Medrano on Friday in U.S. District Court received a 10-1/2 year prison sentence for what prosecutors convinced a jury was illegal activity he engaged in while serving as a political consultant who worked with Cook County government officials (prosecutors say he was getting financial kickbacks on the bandages being sold for use at Stroger Hospital).

MOST POLITICAL PEOPLE who wind up doing a prison sentence get out and maintain a low profile.

They certainly don’t get back in the political game and engage in activity that puts them right back into prison! But that is what happened to Medrano – whose place in the Chicago political history books is literally now one of being a political corruption repeat offender.

Considering that he’ll be nearly 70 by the time he is released, I don’t know whether to think it is feasible that he could become a “three time loser” in the acts of legally inappropriate government behavior.

  -30-

Political "Pope" now free to be political elder statesman like Rosty, "Fast Eddie"

I kind of wish I had known about the release from prison of one-time political powerbroker William Cellini last week when it happened.

CELLINI: Planning for his future

For it seems that the Springfield resident who for decades has used his fundraising skills and political contacts to benefit political candidates of both major parties (even though he himself was a Republican) is no longer occupying space at the federal correctional center in Terre Haute, Ind.

IN FACT, CELLINI was released from the minimum-security work camp near the maximum-security prison last week on Halloween!

Just think, I could have celebrated the holiday by going as Cellini himself, perhaps wearing an ornate "Pope-like" ring so that other politicos could come and kiss it! Of course, there probably would have been a few confused people who would have wondered why an old fool like myself was going disguised as an even older person whom they probably never paid much attention to during his decades of service in and around government.

Cellini is now doing the halfway house portion of federal rehabilitation, where he theoretically will spend this month at a Salvation Army facility on the West Side – getting himself acclimated to life in proper society.

His 366-day prison sentence that he began serving in January won’t technically end until Dec. 5 – yes, Bill behaved himself in prison and qualified for 47 days off his sentence for good behavior.

FOR THE RECORD, the actions that finally got Cellini put away following a career being associated with government that dates back to the early 1970s involved now-incarcerated former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

VRDOLYAK: Cellini's urban counterpart?

Cellini used his contacts to raise money for the Blagojevich campaign (much of which wound up paying for the legal defense during his two trials), and it was claimed during Cellini’s trial that he approached an investment firm to solicit money with promises that the firm would get to handle state teacher pension funds.

Personally, I think the Blagojevich ties are a miniscule part of the Cellini career – which has mostly consisted of being the guy to whom the government officials turn when they want something done.

After all, he hasn’t held any electoral posts anywhere outside of Springfield – and those were in municipal government back in the 1960s. Within state government, he is a former director of Public Works and Buildings and served two years as the first-ever head of the Illinois Department of Transportation.

ROSTENKOWSKI: Elder statesman?

BUT THE ELECTION of Dan Walker (insert bad joke about Walker’s eventual criminal conviction here) in 1972 as governor brought that to an end.

Although he served as the treasurer of the Sangamon County Republican Party, he really became the corporate type who made himself some money while also indulging himself in politics as a hobby of sorts.

Which means what Cellini really became was the guy who worked with decades worth of government officials, seeing the way things worked. Some argue exposure to all that power throughout the years made him cross the line to criminal behavior.

To me, it makes me wonder if Cellini really ought to be compared to one-time House Ways and Means Chair Dan Rostenkowski, D-Ill., and former 10^th Ward Alderman and Cook County Democratic Chairman (who converted himself to Republicanism later in life) Ed Vrdolyak.

ROSTENKOWSKI LITERALLY SPENT the rest of his life after completing his prison time in the 1990s being the elder statesman of the Chicago “Machine.”

How many times did we see him pop up on an Election Day until his death in 2010 for instant analysis of what the voter tallies really meant? Or use his positions as a Northwestern University lecturer and Loyola University senior fellow to influence the way future generations of people perceived politics? Is Cellini destined for similar use at the University of Illinois' Springfield campus?

Vrdolyak these days crops up occasionally in a similar role. Is this the ultimate fate for Cellini? Are Vrdolyak/Cellini destined to become the colorfully-tainted political pundits from Chicago/downstate?

We’ll be waiting to see the outcome.

  -30-

Did you hear the one about the felon who was turned away from prison?

Only Jesse Jackson, Jr., could pull off a moment like this.

JACKSON: He'll be back in 2 years

Most people who get convicted of a political corruption-type of offense have their day where they enter prison, then they get forgotten about in the public eye for some time.

BUT NOT JACKSON.

It seems he showed up on Monday at the Butner Federal Correctional Complex near Durham, N.C.  I lost track of the number of newspaper and television-based websites that went ahead and published the story about the former Congressman and namesake son of the famed civil rights leader now being just a number among all the other prison inmates.

It wasn’t to the extreme of when Rod Blagojevich went to prison and had helicopters and news trucks following him – so we could see the moment when he stopped off at a fast-food joint for a final hamburger and how we saw him get snubbed when he tried to shake the hands of the guards who “greeted” him at his prison facility in Colorado.

But Jackson wound up becoming newsworthy in his own way.

BECAUSE IT SEEMS the prison officials in North Carolina refused to admit Jackson to their facility.

For an extra day, Jackson remained free (to the dismay of his ideological critics who have drawn way too much pleasure from his ordeal, but that's a subject matter for another day)!

Prison officials are being very vague about what exactly went wrong, although the Chicago Tribune reported that one prison official called “very accurate” the description by Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-N.C., that there were paperwork problems.

It also seems that Jackson was told by the federal judge in the District of Columbia who sentenced him to a 30-month sentence (which will become something just over two full years, presuming he earns all the “good time” possible) had told him he had until Friday to report to prison to avoid becoming a federal fugitive from justice.

DID JACKSON REALLY think he could show up early and perhaps get a head start on doing his time? The one thing I have come to know from years of being a reporter-type person dealing with federal bureaucrats is that they are the types who have their regulations.

They want them followed strictly. And they’re not about to let anyone tell them what to do.

Which is probably the reason why they’d turn him away. There probably are people who work in the federal Bureau of Prisons who are thinking these days that Jackson, Jr., is some sort of an arrogant sort for thinking he could dictate to them when his prison time should start.

Of course, there is the very legitimate point that the Bureau of Prisons ought to be strictly regulated in terms of whom they can hold. Without a specific court order saying he should be there, they really do have no right to hold Jackson in their custody before his sentence formally begins.

SO THE OUTCOME of all of this was just a delay. It wound up that when Jackson tried again on Tuesday to check into prison, he was accepted. His final day of freedom was spent in the greater Durham area (not that he was able to see the Durham Bulls play ball, their season’s over) before he began to serve his time.

In the end, prison officials were more than willing to suck him into their system and begin the process of intimidation that is meant to let he (and all other inmates) know who is boss.

But Jackson will wind up earning his place in the Chicago Corruption Hall of Fame for the way in which he was refused a place in prison – at least for a day or so.

  -30-

Beavers jury got a free lunch out of it

Let’s be honest. Now-guilty Cook County Commissioner William Beavers is 100 percent accurate when he says all the gambling he did at area casinos isn’t a crime.

BEAVERS: Ray Charles?!?

“There’s no law against what I did. There’s no law against gambling with campaign funds,” Beavers told reporter-types at the Dirksen Building right after a jury spent as little time as possible in reaching a “guilty” verdict against him on the various counts of tax evasion that he faced.

SERIOUSLY, THAT JURY was fed lunch and didn’t start deliberating until about 1:30 p.m., with a verdict coming in plenty of time for the evening newscasts.

But back to Beavers, who is true enough in what he said.

But the law does require that political people who convert their campaign cash into personal use acknowledge it as income, which means letting the Internal Revenue Service have a share of the proceeds as well.

That is the offense for which Beavers was found guilty, and likely will have to serve a bit of prison time. Although at age 78, it can be argued that any prison sentence has the potential to be a life sentence.

NOT THAT I think many people care about that fact these days. Because the prosecutorial tactic was to dirty Beavers up to the point where a jury would want to put him away, and would use whatever charge it was presented with in order to do so.

Hence, we get the image of a guy who is a degenerate gambler. Although his defense attorneys on Thursday tried presenting the image of a guy with a gambling problem.

As though he ought to be sent to sessions of Gamblers Anonymous, rather than some time at the Oxford Correctional Center in Wisconsin, or whichever facility in the Bureau of Prisons system they wind up deciding to use to incarcerate the one-time cop and alderman-turned-county commissioner from the city’s Southeast Side and surrounding suburbs.

If it reads like I’m not convinced that Bill Beavers is anything resembling Public Enemy Number One, you’d be correct.

PERSONALLY, I FIND much about casino gambling to be absurd, and I don’t get the appeal of playing games of chance that strike me as being nothing more than tossing one’s money into the equivalent of a trash can for someone else to empty out and get rich off of.

But it seems Beavers was a regular at the Horseshoe Casino just over the state line in Hammond, Ind. Because he was a regular who lost a lot of money (all regulars invariably do), he got the VIP treatment that entitled him to the free meals and tickets to entertainment – all so that he’d go back to the slot machines and lose even more money.

Evidence presented during the trial indicated that Beavers lost $477,000 playing slot machines during a three-year period.

Excuse me for thinking that the real “crime” against society is being perpetrated by the casino operators who can sucker someone into their facilities to be able to lose that much money.

I’D HATE TO see what happens to the people who don’t have a campaign fund to tap into who let their losses get above their means.

Not that I’m implying that we all should get a campaign fund for such use. Beavers is guilty of a bookkeeping offense. For that, his political reputation is besmirched permanently.

 

Although at his age, I can’t help but have the same feeling I had when one-time 10^th Ward Alderman Edward R. Vrdolyak faced the possibility of prison – his political accomplishments were in the past. What more did anyone seriously expect him to do?

A political vacancy, if you live in the grey blotch

Beavers will move on, and soon we’ll have to go through the process of replacing him on the Cook County Board.

NOT THAT I have a clue who’s going to get the post. But it has me wondering if it could somehow be a consolation prize for some of the Democratic Party losers of the special primary election for a replacement for Jesse Jackson, Jr.

Beavers’ district is entirely within the Congressional district. Yet another vacancy for a political aspirant in need of a post.

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The case that just won’t wither away

Political observers have been so caught up in the pending fate of Jesse Jackson, Jr., that it almost seems like the case surrounding Bill Beavers has withered away.

BEAVERS: Will he speak?

It hasn’t!

IN FACT, THIS particular legal battle will come back to life this week, as the postponed trial of the Cook County commissioner will finally get underway – after having started up back in December, only to be put on hold ‘til this week.

It is interesting for the way that the Jackson and Beavers families have tried to set themselves up as the political powerbrokers for the South Side. Now, it’s like the area is leader-less.

In fact, I recall one political pundit suggesting that the special primary election for the Illinois Second Congressional District seat was influenced by that fact – since local voters for the first time in a long time didn’t have a Jackson or a Beavers telling them who they should vote for.

Could Robin Kelly’s efforts to gain influence in the Congressional post be aided by the fact that she may not have either a Jackson or a Beavers standing in her way to try to keep her from becoming too powerful?

THERE IS A sad aspect to this political situation – mostly that both Jackson and Beavers appear to have been taken down for “criminal” affairs that border more on stupid than venal!

Jackson is the guy who pleaded guilty recently (and faces sentencing some time in June) for using money from his campaign fund to make all kinds of personal purchases.

JACKSON: Awaiting his fate

He’s going to be the guy who took all those financial donations made to his fund and used them to buy Michael Jackson’s hat (too bad he couldn’t get the iconic glove!) and all kinds of other bits of “memorabilia.”

I suppose he could have tried claiming that he was buying them to decorate the Congressional office, and that they would have been passed down to whomever eventually succeeded him in office. I wouldn’t have bought it, mainly because I would think a future member of Congress wouldn’t want to be burdened with such junk.

AT LEAST BEAVERS didn’t bother to accumulate all kinds of junk with the purchases he made using campaign funds that federal prosecutors want to claim are criminal in nature.

For Beavers is the guy who, like many other South Side residents, likes to indulge his gambling tendencies at the casinos in Northwest Indiana.

Not that far across State Line Road, literally, is the Horseshoe Casino, where prosecutors say he spent a good share of the $225,000 in campaign funds that was not properly reported as income (which means paying a share of it as taxes to the Internal Revenue Service).

As though if Beavers had reported the income and paid taxes, there’d be nothing illegal about him using the rest of the money to gamble with.

NOT THAT THE public would feel that way. They’d be just as outraged. But this is the technicality upon which the feds will be out to get Beavers. Which literally does make it seem a bit like Al Capone – except that Beavers’ underlying actions are nothing more than being a political blowhard (not like Capone being the bootlegger in violation of the now-defunct Volstead Act).



KELLY: No Jackson or Beavers in her way



What will be interesting about this case is whether anyone buys into Beavers’ claim that he’s being persecuted by the federal government because he wouldn’t wear a wiretap and help gain evidence against fellow Cook County commissioner John Daley.

I’m skeptical, in part because that “Daley” name is held just a bit too sacred by too many people. Besides, the only way Beavers gets to bring up that claim during his trial is if he’s willing to actually say it for himself by testifying.

Beavers using his sense would keep his mouth shut. But then that turns this trial into a petty tax case that was hardly worth the government’s effort to prosecute – except to the degree that it satisfied the political partisanship of certain people who couldn’t beat Beavers (or Jackson, for that matter) on Election Day.

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Electoral politics brings out the tackiest of gallows humor in some people

The next week is going to provide certain people amongst us with a field day for their sick, twisted jokes about our political state.

RYAN: Soon to be free (sort of)

You know who you are. The ones who can’t resist a chance to take a pot shot at former Gov. George Ryan and anyone else whose name they can manage to tie into his.

HOW MANY PEOPLE have derived a gag (and an attempted laugh) at the thought of Ryan and our other convicted former Governor, Rod Blagojevich, being cellmates or being assigned to some miserly duty in the prison yard?

That never happened – what with Ryan doing his time at the minimum-security work camp connected to the maximum-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., and Blagojevich winding up at that facility out in Colorado!

But it was this week that former political powerbroker William Cellini finally surrendered himself to federal officials, where he was then sent to the very same minimum-security facility where Ryan is being held.

For the time being.

YOU PEOPLE CAN have your jokes about how the mighty-and-powerful have fallen and are now sharing space in the same federal facility.

Perhaps it is a sign of how far the Republican Party has fallen, since back in the days when they were significant and Mighty! and capable of actually getting things done, it was with people like Ryan in charge, with people like Cellini using his business acumen to raise the money that those candidates used to pay for their campaigns.

CELLINI: Soon to be prison power-broker?

Which then made them indebted to Cellini – which was the source of his power. He had the ability to tell people with power how they should use it.

Now, they two of them are a punch line, rotting away at a Bureau of Prisons facility in a southwestern Indiana community where “God” is spelled “L-A-R-R-Y B-I-R-D.”

HE DID, AFTER all, play his college ball at nearby Indiana State University.

But back to Ryan and Cellini – who aren’t going to be prison-mates for long. For Ryan is on the verge of leaving the facility where he has spent nearly six of what should have been his “Golden” years.

Ryan’s prison term is scheduled to end July 4. But in accordance with standard prison policy, inmates can be released to a half-way house a few months early as part of an effort to re-acclimate those individuals to the outside world – which has changed quite a bit since Ryan went away.

And the Chicago Sun-Times reported recently that Ryan’s date for release – possibly to a facility on the West Side – is one week from Wednesday.

ALREADY, I HAVE been reading the gripes from those individuals who are determined to believe that any sort of release for Ryan is a political favor of sorts.

As though the only way those individuals will be pleased is if they learn of a report that Ryan was killed during a prison riot. Then again, they’ll probably gripe that it wasn’t violent enough.

If it sounds like I hold a lot of Ryan’s critics in contempt, you’d be accurate.

It just seems like certain people are determined to let their venom flow to extraordinary levels when it comes to our former governor from the Kankakee area. Which kind of saddens me.

THAT IS A lot of hatred they have built up, and it likely is preventing them from getting on with their own lives and achieving something of significance.

And while I’ll admit that even all these years later, a part of me is skeptical about the nature of the charges for which Ryan was convicted, I accept that a jury reached its verdict that has been upheld by various appeals courts.

Ryan did his time. Just as Cellini is about to do his (he owes the federal government about one year, and should be free by 2014). Those of us who feel compelled to spew disgust about this situation ought to look more intensely at ourselves.

For while I’m the first person to admit I can appreciate the humor of a tacky situation, the overkill we’re going to hear in coming weeks and months is something that will leave me in dismay.

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