The Chicago Tribune reports:
A case involving Mayor Richard Daley's former patronage chief may prompt the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a key question of public corruption law: Is it a federal crime to give public jobs to campaign workers?
Robert Sorich, the ex-patronage chief, is appealing his conviction three years ago for "honest services fraud" for having "doled out thousands of city civil service jobs based on political patronage and nepotism," as the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said last year.
There's more:
In addition to helping the mayor's political organization, this patronage army helped elect President Barack Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, to Congress, and worked to elect scandal-plagued Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Lawyers for Sorich and his two co-defendants are asking the Supreme Court to take up their appeal and to throw out their convictions on the grounds that their hiring scheme did not amount to a federal crime.
The justices considered the appeal in a closed meeting on Friday and may act on it as soon as Monday.
No word yet from former Freddie Mac board member Rahm Emanuel on this one.
