Crain's Chicago Business reports:
An attorney convicted in Operation Greylord is trying to win back his law license, after nearly 30 years and a second career as a city contractor with reputed political connections.
Alphonse Gonzales, now 62, would be the first lawyer disbarred as a result of Greylord to win reinstatement — though he's not the first to try.
Mr. Gonzales pleaded guilty in 1986 to one count of extortion and went to prison for soliciting $22,000 to fix an armed robbery case. He later started a construction firm that won city business, despite the conviction and errors he made on a disclosure form related to Chicago Public Schools work.
There's more:
Operation Greylord was a colossal FBI sting in the early 1980s involving the Cook County judicial system. It resulted in 92 indictments naming judges, attorneys, law enforcement personnel, court employees and one state legislator. Among the convicted were 15 judges and 50 lawyers.
There's even more:
During opening arguments in the Gonzales hearing, Wendy Muchman, the ARDC's chief of litigation and professional education, asserted that Mr. Gonzales is "not rehabilitated" nor "fit to practice law." He owes the city more than $100,000 in default judgments, she said, and "has benefit of assistance of powerful businessmen and politicians in the city of Chicago."
Who would want to associate with this scum?
Mr. Gonzales' wife, Rose, worked in the mid-1980s for the City Council's Finance Committee, chaired — then, as now — by 14th Ward Ald. Edward Burke. Mr. Gonzales' son Eric partnered with Mr. Burke in a $4.6 million Southwest Side residential development in the mid-2000s. Mr. Burke and his wife, Anne, a Supreme Court justice, live in one of its homes.
United Neighborhood Organization, the city's largest charter school operator, recently agreed to settle a Securities and Exchange Commission complaint that it defrauded bondholders by failing to disclose conflicts of interest in awarding school construction contracts. UNO has received plenty of political support from Mr. Burke in the past.
Eric Gonzales, 43, also was a partner in the mid-2000s in Valor Realty Advisors with Martin Cabrera, an executive in the public finance sector who resigned last year as chairman of UNO. Rose Gonzales has been listed as an investor in Cabrera Capital Markets LLC.
Valor advised pension funds on real estate investments and closed in 2007, according to testimony at the ARDC hearing. “The investment money ran out,” Alphonse Gonzales testified.
For more on the "real" Mayor of Chicago click on
this. For Alderman Ed Burke association with organized crime click on
this. As you can guess, Barack Obama was given the "green" light to run for President from Alderman Ed Burke.
