The City of Chicago Conspiracy To Destroy Federal Jobs Probe

The Chicago Tribune reports:

Federal prosecutors made fresh accusations Tuesday that aides to Mayor Richard Daley destroyed computer evidence of hiring fraud, with city officials allegedly joking about tossing computers into Lake Michigan to get rid of databases used to track political hires.

Prosecutors said a city computer operator interviewed in the past month about the alleged coverup described a meeting with Daley's patronage chief, Robert Sorich, and another man. The computer operator alleged that Sorich told him to delete a directory from a laptop computer in Sorich's office.

"The computer operator recalled one of the men, probably Sorich, joking about throwing a hard drive into Lake Michigan," according to a new government filing in the criminal case against Sorich and three other former city officials.

The new allegations, which did not result in any new charges, come just a week before the trial is set to begin for Sorich and his three co-defendants in U.S. District Court. The four are charged with participating in a "massive fraud" in the city's hiring process to guarantee jobs and promotions for pro-Daley political workers.

Prosecutors say city officials over the years repeatedly took steps to hide patronage by shredding documents and erasing computer files. The incident alleged on Tuesday apparently occurred around 2002, when the federal government accused Scott Fawell, an aide to Gov. George Ryan, of directing the destruction of computer files.

Patrick Fitzgerald's day job.