The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
Before his recent fall from grace, John Briatta, the mayor's brother's brother-in-law, served as secretary of the Laborers' Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago.
That's the pension board that oversees retirement benefits for about 9,500 city workers and retirees, most of them from the Department of Streets and Sanitation. In carrying out that responsibility, the board also has control over the investment of $1.7 billion in assets.
And if you've lost track, this is the same John Briatta who was fired from his $94,000 city water department job last summer in an alleged payroll scam -- who then last week was indicted on mostly unrelated charges of taking $8,000 in bribes in the Hired Truck scandal.
and
During testimony before a hearing officer who was considering whether to put the union in trusteeship, a former FBI agent said his informants had identified three members of the Briatta family as being among the mob associates who were union members, including John Briatta's late father, Louis "Louie the Barber" Briatta, who ran a barbershop at Polk and Aberdeen. John Briatta's sister is married to Cook County Commissioner John Daley.
Where the Democratic party begins and the Chicago Mob ends no one really knows.That's the Chicago Way.
