Is the City of Chicago A Racketeering Enterprise?

John Kass of the Chicago Tribune asks none other than Patrick Fitzgerald about Chicago City Clerk James Laski:

So on Friday, I asked Fitzgerald about the line about the "influential alderman," and when Laski, who previously had several political spats with Daley, could have been brought back inside the fold where a deal could be made on trucks he sponsored.

"We make no allegations in the complaint about the timing of this ..." Fitzgerald told me.

No, I said, I'm making the allegation, and I'm asking you to help me.

"I'm not going to help you," Fitzgerald said.

I asked if federal prosecutors could use the racketeering statutes to go back in time, to override the statute of limitations on old scams.

"There's a single reference to a conversation Mr. Laski said he had [with the influential alderman]" Fitzgerald said. "We're not going to comment on the significance of it beyond what's in the complaint. We don't generally do that, and I can't."

Shouldn't racketeering statues apply to real criminals?