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.

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Another blast from Chi political past; could ‘Fast Eddie’ return to prison?

It almost feels like the “G-men” of Chicago are engaging in Old Home Week lately.

VRDOLYAK: From before the feds paid him mind

First, we learn that former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert – one of the few Illinoisans to ever rise to that exulted position – was indicted on charges he violated federal laws concerning bank withdrawals; supposedly to come up with money to pay off someone else to keep quiet about long-ago wrongdoings.

NOW, WE’RE GETTING word that former 10^th Ward Alderman and Cook County Democratic Chairman-who-turned-Republican Edward R. Vrdolyak is the subject of federal investigators.

As of now, Vrdolyak isn’t charged with anything.

But Daniel Soso, an attorney from suburban Alsip, is indicted on federal tax evasion charges. The Chicago Sun-Times reported Sunday that the Soso indictment makes reference to an “Individual A” who may have been involved.

And the newspaper said it has sources contending that Vrdolyak is the aforementioned “Individual A” being referred to.

I PREVIOUSLY MADE reference to a similarity between Hastert and Vrdolyak in that both came to the attention of federal prosecutors long after their time on government payrolls was complete.

Vrdolyak already has served a 10-month prison term for charges contending that he arranged for a kickback in the sale price of a Gold Coast neighborhood building, in addition to any legal fees he would have been entitled to for his legal services.

MEDRANO: Not many pols get 2nd conviction

Is he now going to face the possibility of another prosecution? This one likely to produce a significant prison term? Is someone determined to see that Vrdolyak leaves this mortal realm of existence by being pronounced dead in a prison infirmary?

The newspaper says the latest case relates to the 1998 settlement of Illinois’ lawsuit against tobacco companies – a $9.1 billion payment, which means significant money.

PROSECUTORS ALLEGE THAT Vrdolyak, although not registered as one of the attorneys involved in the case, were paid a portion of the settlement; and did not comply with the regulations set by the state Attorney General’s office for receiving such payments.

HASTERT: Another pol facing not-relaxing retirement

So what should we think? Did Vrdolyak somehow get payments for work done under the table? Or for helping somebody to meet somebody else connected to the case?

We really don’t know what it is that Vrdolyak is purported to have done; other than that the “I” word is being flouted about – and that if he were to be prosecuted for something a second time, it would put “Fast Eddie” in a unique situation.

He and Abrosio Medrano, who also has separate convictions and wound up being returned to prison for a much lengthier sentence than his first stint of incarceration.

IS THAT GOING to become the Vrdolyak legacy? Or is he going to get the support of the East Side and other 10^th Ward residents who once relied on him to be their voice at City Hall – and some of whom still think of him as the person who “saved” their neighborhood.

Of course, what he was saving them from was what was represented by the election of Harold Washington as mayor. Which is why I’m sure there are some people who are more than glad to see Vrdolyak suffer these legal predicaments.

What this case is all going to come down to is trying to figure out what exactly constitutes a legal fee? Why shouldn’t Vrdolyak have received some money if he truly did legal work? I’ve already seen some Facebook commentary implying that prosecutors should, “leave Eddie alone.”

It is interesting that Vrdolyak’s attorney told the Sun-Times that the case was so long ago (17 years) and that his client is now 77; some people will feel sympathy for “Fast Eddie.” But will more be eager to see him carted off to prison yet again?

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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.

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Being tough on crime? Or just overzealous with desire to punish?

BEAVERS: Wants to be free

Former Cook County Commissioner William Beavers will be in court on Wednesday to learn just how long a time he will have to serve in prison as punishment for his income tax evasion offenses, and we’re going to see just how hard-core the prosecution will be in getting its way.

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.

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.

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Court quirks; is everybody broke?

When the federal government decides that its law enforcement types want to single you out, it is an expensive proposition.

Which is why I can’t help but see the truth in what was former Cook County Board President Todd Stroger’s initial reaction to learning that his former press spokesman and childhood friend now faces an indictment in U.S. District Court.

ACCORDING TO THE Chicago Sun-Times (but not the Chicago Tribune), the Stroger reaction was to say, “That’s too bad because he’ll have to spend money on lawyers.”

Some people are interpreting that comment as some sort of vacuous remark on the part of Stroger, the younger. While others are going out of their way to stretch out an interpretation that claims it is a virtual admission that he will probably have to spend money on lawyers someday.

I just see it as a truthful statement. It might well be the most honest thing that has come out of a political person’s mouth all week.

For 48-year-old Eugene Mullins is going to find his life turned upside down, now that he has to defend himself against a multi-count indictment along with other people.

IT IS LIKELY that all of them will wind up taking each other down – which is the big reason that federal prosecutors like to have trials with multiple defendants.

The confusion over who did what often makes jurors think that everybody did something wrong, so everybody goes down.

And if any of them had any money to begin with, it invariably gets eaten up by legal expenses and the cost of trying to avoid prison.

I still recall former state Treasurer Jerry Cosentino, who back in the 1990s had his own legal problems and wound up being found guilty. But he managed to avoid a prison term because of his advanced age (which is what William Cellini wishes for these days, but that’s a story for another day).

HE ALSO DIED broke. He lost his house. The only thing that prevented him from being homeless was that his daughter took him in during the final years of his life.

Mullins will soon find himself in a similar situation.

In fact, some already are in that situation even though their criminal proceedings have barely started.

For former Cook County Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno and former alderman Ambrosio Medrano were in court this week on their own corruption charges.

BUT UNLIKE THE attorneys who seem to feed off of political people facing corruption charges, none of them are swarming around Moreno or Medrano.

Both of them appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Morton Denlow, entered their plea of “not guilty,” then formally said they can’t afford to hire legal representation.

They’re getting the federal equivalent of the public defender – who likely is swamped with so many other cases involving indigent defendants  that it is questionable how high a quality of a legal defense they’ll get.

I’m sure the attorneys who get assigned to these two will do the best they possibly can. But the key to comprehending our legal system at times (as evidenced by O.J. Simpson) is that money does talk!

OF COURSE, PERHAPS it is part of a legal strategy. The two face charges that basically say they enriched themselves with bribes. Yet both are now busted! How criminal could they be if they don’t have any money to show for it?

Particularly in the case of Medrano, who already has done a prison sentence for a previous government corruption case against him. He’s already unique in being a possible repeat offender.

Now, he’s an indigent government official. Medrano has definitely earned his place in the Chicago political history books.

All in all, all of these cases are a sad (as in pathetic, not tragic) saga. Crime, if it really did happen here, truly did not pay!

  -30-

Medrano gets place in Chicago political corruption realm – a repeat offender

MEDRANO: An encore?

I realize that Ambrosio Medrano is innocent until proven otherwise by federal prosecutors.

Yet I also realize that the operations of the Justice Department can be heavy-handed, and they have a way of hitting people with the weight of the world in those cases where the U.S. government decides it wants to go after an individual.

SO THE FORMER Chicago alderman is in a mess of trouble, and is likely to wind up doing some serious prison time – since very few of the Chicago political people who get indicted on corruption charges wind up being able to get themselves acquitted.

Yet Medrano has truly become a unique character in Chicago political history. He’s a guy who’s already been through the process.

He lost his seat as an alderman nearly two decades ago – prosecutors claim he took $31,000 in bribes back in the days of Operation Silver Shovel; the 1990s investigation when the feds were looking at corruption at City Hall and found a lot of it within Streets and Sanitation.

Specifically, prosecutors claim his taking of rewards after providing ghost-payroller jobs for two people on the City Council’s housing committee amounted to criminal behavior.

IN ALL HONESTLY, none of this is particularly noteworthy. It’s old trivia.

There have been many government officials who have done something that federal prosecutors thought was improper. They wound up going to prison. They did their time.

Then, they come back and wind up living their lives trying to work outside of government. In many cases, they try to keep a low profile. The average person forgets them.

Will the son have to maintain low profile too?



The average political geek remembers the name, but has no clue what became of them (personally, I couldn’t tell you off the top of my head what became of people like Miriam Santos or Larry Bloom, and I doubt I’m the exception).

UNTIL THURSDAY, IT seemed that Medrano would experience the same fate – even though he eventually wound up on the staff of now-former Cook County Commissioner Joseph M. Moreno and back in 2003 and 2007 had the gall to try to run for a seat on the City Council. Medrano wound up in one of those government posts that isn’t elected, doesn’t draw a lot of public attention, but puts one in a position to influence government activity if one has any brains and ambition.

So when the U.S. Attorney’s office (head prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s final day before leaving is Friday, so this is his “last hurrah”) investigated Moreno’s behavior in office, it meant that Medrano got caught up with it too.

Prosecutors say that Moreno took $5,000 related to behavior at a waste transfer station in suburban Cicero. Those same prosecutors say Medrano offered a bribe while working for Moreno to a person who turned out to be an undercover informant.

Which means that Medrano is that rarest of defendants in political corruption cases – a repeat offender! And one whose son with political aspirations of his own is going to have to live that down – since he’s a “junior.”

I HAVE NO doubt that upon conviction (if he’s unable to beat the rap), he’ll receive as close to the maximum sentence in prison as is humanly possible. It won’t be anything like the 21 months he did previously at the minimum-security facility in Oxford, Wis.

He may well get that Terre Haute, Ind., experience like George Ryan – only in the maximum-security portion of the facility rather than the minimum-security work camp like the former governor.

I couldn’t help but note that Medrano was denied the chance to post bail, with prosecutors arguing that he was most definitely a flight risk. Perhaps they think he’ll be in Cancun or Mexico City within days if he were allowed to walk out of the Federal Building.

It seems that Medrano is going to become the face of the unrepentant Chicago politician. He just never learns from his mistakes.

  -30-

From pols to publishers, they all offer differing tales of federal prison life

Some people like to make jokes about “Club Fed” and life in prison as somehow being cushy. I’d like to think that those people are just being ridiculous, and not really so clueless.

But then I read about the conditions that one-time Chicago Sun-Times boss Conrad Black is enduring while serving a 6 ½-year sentence at a federal prison in Florida, and I have to wonder.

THE TORONTO STAR published an account Thursday that noted – among other things – that Black has made arrangements with prison officials so that his cellmate is assigned to work as Black’s butler, cleaner and all-around gofer while in prison.

Who says you can’t find good hired help?

The Star took its information from the British newspapers, which has long been far more interested in “Lord Black of Crossharbour” than we in Chicago ever were. To them, he’s a member of the House of Lords who got “busted.” To us, he’s just the cheap bum who gutted the Sun-Times to the point where it may be impossible for “the Bright One” to recover financially.

Considering that this account in the Chicago Argus is a rewrite of a Toronto Star account that is a rewrite of a story that appeared in the Daily Mail, it is possible that some aspect of truth has been lost in translation.

BUT OTHER TIDBITS about Black’s prison life include that he started his term with a job as a dishwasher, but has since been reassigned to the prison library – where he now has access to newspapers and e-mail.

He even was pictured in the newspaper wearing black t-shirts and gray sweat pants. The British press made a point of saying that such attire was far less dignified than the stylish, tailored suits he used to wear.

But I can’t help but note that they are a step up from the castoff military fatigues that are the standard issue attire of most inmates in facilities run by the federal Bureau of Prisons.

Is Black getting a cushy prison stint because of his background? I don’t understand why he would, but it would appear that way.

AND THE ANSWER is “no,” I don’t have any evidence of payoffs by Black or his supporters. So don’t ask.

But what catches my attention is that his version of prison life seems so radically different from the politically prominent inmates from Chicago who are serving (or have served) time in federal prison facilities.

It is the same bureaucrats who are running the prisons, so it ought to be the same type of conditions for the inmates.

After all, Black’s old newspaper in Chicago on Thursday published an account giving several former government officials a chance to talk about what their life in prison was like.

FORMER GOV. GEORGE Ryan is now an inmate at the minimum-security work camp that is part of the maximum-security Terre Haute federal correctional center. His prison job these days is so depressing that his family doesn’t want to talk about it, although when he was an inmate at the minimum-security Oxford Correctional Center, his prison job was to work in the exercise room.

One of his duties was literally to wipe inmate sweat off the exercise equipment.

Former Alderman Ambrosio Medrano told the newspaper he literally used to clean toilets, while former Alderman Wallace Davis Jr. had to work in the prison kitchen for a time – which is ironic because he now owns a restaurant that peddles fried catfish.

Not that everybody had gross stories to tell.

THERE WAS ALWAYS the situation of former city Clerk Jim Laski, who says that after starting out working in the kitchen, he was transferred to a special unit where his job involved no actual work.

“It’s like the city jobs you hear about where people show up and do no actual work,” Laski told the Sun-Times. “They have those in prison too.”

Some public degredation is involved, as federal bureaucrats who like to think of themselves as “law and order” types don’t mind giving junk duty to inmates who were once prominent people.

Former Gov. Dan Walker has often told the story of how he suddenly got reassigned by a new warden to a job picking up trash, using a special spear emblazoned with the words “Governor’s Stick” to remind him of how far he had fallen.

PERHAPS THERE IS something similar in the fact that Ryan (according to former Illinois first lady Lura Lynn) once thought he would get a job working in a prison library, only to suddenly get the duties that are too shameful to be spoken of.

But then, there are the inmates who complain about their plight. It turns out Black is one of them.

Despite evidence that his time in prison is not as negative an experience as it is for many other individuals, “Lord Black” is displeased.

The Toronto Star quotes an official who says Black the inmate “remains very snobbish” and is astounded at the lack of education of most of his fellow inmates – many of whom are from non-Anglo racial or ethnic groups who never graduated from high school and are serving time for drug-related offenses.

BECAUSE THESE PARTICULAR inmates have not caused serious disciplinary problems while in prison, they have been moved to the same minimum-security facility as a one-time member of the British Parliament.

Another person who thinks she is a step above her fellow inmates is one-time Cicero Mayor Betty Loren Maltese – who has been assigned to a crew that serves food to other inmates with special dietary restrictions (mostly to accommodate religious beliefs).

As a result, Betty these days has to listen to other inmates complain about the low quality of “slop” they are expected to survive on.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Betty looks down on her fellow inmates (at least one of whom has complained about receiving smaller bananas than other inmates) while also complaining about the quality of food she is expected to eat.

THE NEWSPAPER NOTES she has complained to prison chaplains that the food is not cooked to her preferred specifications, and she also wants to know why she can’t be served items such as cheesecake on a regular basis.

Admittedly, there is a continent between the two (Maltese is doing her time in California, while Black is serving time at a prison near Orlando, Fla.), but it almost is a shame that Lord Black of Crossharbour can’t be paired up with Mayor Betty from Cicero.

With their combined reported gripes, they’d be the perfect prison couple.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Chicago pols have varying accounts of life in prison following (http://www.suntimes.com/news/watchdogs/1118867,CST-NWS-watchdog21.article0) convictions on charges related to political corruption, but not many politicos wold compare prison jobs to Chicago city jobs the way Jim Laski does.

A butler, gofer and cleaner? That is what former Hollinger bigwig Conrad Black has arranged for himself (http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/482704) in prison.