The Chicago Tribune reports:
A former top aide to Mayor Richard Daley and three other former city officials were convicted today in a scheme to load the city payroll with political campaign workers in defiance of a federal court order.
Jurors deliberated for 3 1/2 days in the five-week trial before convicting Robert Sorich, Daley's 43-year-old former patronage chief, of two counts of mail fraud. Jurors acquitted him of two additional mail fraud counts.
Sorich's former deputy, Timothy McCarthy, 35, was found guilty of two counts of mail fraud. Former Streets and Sanitation Department worker Patrick Slattery, 42, was convicted of one count of mail fraud, and onetime co-worker John Sullivan was convicted of one count of lying to an FBI agent.
This is legally significant because patronage in certain situations can now be a crime.As the
Chicago Tribune says:
Who's next to be indicted? What racketeering statutes might the prosecutors now invoke? How high will this scandal reach?
Which are very good questions because the City of Chicago really is a racketeering enterprise to loot taxpayers for the benefits of some insiders and a mass army of city workers with golden pensions.
