Mayor Daley's Brother's Brother in Law Pleads Guilty

The AP reports:

A former city worker who married into Mayor Richard M. Daley's family and later was fired by the mayor from his water department job pleaded guilty Thursday to taking at least $5,400 in bribes to get trucks into Chicago's corruption-plagued Hired Truck Program.

John Briatta, 46, appeared before U.S. District Judge Charles R. Norgle Sr. and said he was having financial problems in June 2003 when he agreed to get a truck owned by Get Plowed Inc. into the program for a $500 monthly payment.

The Hired Truck Program, which cost taxpayers $38 million at its peak two years ago, was designed to save money by enabling the city to outsource its hauling work to private truckers.

Prosecutors say the program has been riddled with payoffs and other corruption. Some of the companies that received payments have ties to organized crime.

Federal investigators have been looking into the program for more than two years and in recent months have expanded the investigation to include alleged fraud to get campaign workers on the city payroll in defiance of a court order against political patronage hiring.

Briatta said he later agreed to get a second Get Plowed truck into the program and received at least $1,200 a month from another city worker, Randy Aderman, for several more months. He said some of the money was credited against a personal loan Aderman had made to him.

"Is that what you did?" Norgle asked Briatta.

"Yes, it is," he said.

Briatta is the brother-in-law of Cook County Commissioner John Daley, the mayor's brother.

The fact that Briatta cut a deal suggests he might have some good stuff on higher ups in Chicago.Just a logical deduction.