Cook County a Dark Pool of Political Corruption

[SF-TX]

Where do the POTUS and many of his advisers hail from?

Corruption in Cook County:
Anti-Corruption Report Number 3
February 18, 2010

University of Illinois at Chicago
Department of Political Science
and the
Better Government Association


Introduction

Cook County government has been a dark pool of political corruption for more than 140 years. The first public corruption scandal occurred in 1869 when a number of Cook County Commissioners accepted bribes to approve a fraudulent contract to paint city hall.1

During the last several decades, Cook County has been a center of corruption with scandals emerging in many different units of county government. By chronicling the cases we hope to call attention to the need for meaningful reform. When county government such as Cook County Clerk David Orr’s office or Assessor James Houlihan’s office do undertake meaningful reform, others sink back into the mire.

Public or political corruption occurs when government officials use their public office for private gain or benefit. In Cook County government this includes outright bribes as well as campaign contributions made by individuals or corporations in exchange for jobs, inflated contracts or political favors. It includes ghost payroll jobs in which individuals get a paycheck but do no work. With an annual budget of more than $3 billion—dishonest public servants find many different ways to profit illegally.

The purpose of this report is to summarize the many different forms of corruption and to recommend basic reforms that need to be enacted to clean up Cook County government.

This report provides a roster of nearly 150 convicted Cook County politicians and government officials along with descriptions of each of their illegal schemes. It includes private citizens and businessmen who were also convicted in connection with public corruption scandals. There are eight individuals named who are under investigation or have been indicted but not yet convicted.

Most of the information came through a careful search of newspaper articles and public records since 1970. The actual total of corrupt officials and their cohorts may be greater than the number we have listed. We are still working to document the many other grafters, crooks and cheats who work for the county or receive county contracts.

Criminal convictions are just the tip of the iceberg in Cook County. For each corrupt official who is convicted—there may be dozens more who are involved in the same or similar schemes but escape prosecution.

The pattern of political corruption in county government is widespread and not confined to a single unit of government. This report documents graft and corruption in the Cook County Board President’s office, his Office of Employment and Training, the Highway Department and in the offices of the sheriff, assessor and treasurer as well as the Clerk of the Circuit Court. It details outright theft and bribery, as well as endemic patronage, nepotism, and cronyism.

An especially egregious example was Judge Thomas J. Maloney. He was convicted in Operation Greylord of accepting thousands of dollars in bribes to fix felony cases including murder trials. Another outrageous example was Marie D’Amico convicted in Operation Haunted Hall of having three no-work jobs. D’Amico is the daughter of Alderman Tony Laurino and wife of then Deputy Commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation John D’Amico, who did 2 years in federal prison for his involvement in the ghost payroll scheme.

Finally, in addition to systemic corruption, county government is infested with conflicts of interest that often result in contracts being awarded to the friends, family and political cronies of public officials. These are not cases involving outright bribery but in Chicago parlance, they are evidence of the “culture of clout” and result in hiring unqualified candidates and awarding contracts with “theft written between the lines.”2 It is a pattern of pervasive corruption and a culture of deceit that must be changed if county government is to provide honest, transparent, efficient and effective government to taxpayers at a cost we can afford.

For the rest (full report also attached as a .pdf):

http://www.uic.edu/depts/pols/Chicag...ortNumber3.pdf

"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt." --Samuel Adams, essay in The Public Advertiser, 1749