As part of the series “ Culture of Corruption ,” the Tribune has compiled a list of roughly 200 convicted, indicted or generally notorious public officials from Illinois’ long and infamous political history. We’re calling it “The Dishonor Roll.” On this page you can read about Chicago aldermen and other city politicians.
This list isn’t meant to be exhaustive, and the Tribune will be updating it as warranted. “ The Dishonor Roll ” draws heavily from the vast archives of the Tribune, including photography and pages from the newspaper on the days these public officials made headlines. Read more of “The Dishonor Roll” below: Federal officials Statewide officials General Assembly Downstate and suburban officials Judges Cook County officials Ald.
Carrie Austin, 34th, at a City Council meeting in 2021. (Jose M. Osorio/ Chicago Tribune) A member of the City Council from 1994 till she resigned in 2023, Ald.
Carrie Austin was appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley to represent the 34th Ward on the Far South Side after the death of her husband, Ald. Lemuel Austin .
Ald. Carrie Austin and her chief of staff were indicted in 2021 on federal bribery charges. (Chicago Tribune) She was reelected to a sixth term in 2019 — the same year her ward office was raided by federal agents — but in 2021, Austin and her top aide were indicted on federal bribery charges accusing them of shepherding a new real estate development through the City Hall approval process beginning in 2016, and of receiving home improvement perks from a developer seeking to influence them.
They have pleaded not guilty . A federal judge has refused to dismiss the indictment even as Austin’s lawyer said she was too ill to assist in her own defense. Ald.
Mathias “Paddy” Bauler, in the top hat, hosted parties in his office and saloon on North Avenue. (Chicago Tribune archive) Of all the colorful characters who have peopled Chicago’s political history, few were as flamboyant or as outspoken as Mathias ”Paddy” Bauler, the saloonkeeper who controlled the 43d Ward (and whose establishment also served as ward headquarters) from 1933 to 1967. More noted in his day for his wild parties than for any accomplishments as a public official, he made history as the man who uttered the immortal line, ”Chicago ain’t ready for reform.
” In December 1933, Bauler was charged with assaulting a Chicago police officer with intent to kill. Bauler claimed he fired in self-defense, and although the officer insisted the alderman opened fire without provocation, the alderman was acquitted and the officer dismissed from the force. Former Ald.
Lawrence Bloom proclaims his innocence in 1997. A year later, he entered a guilty plea. (Chuck Berman/Chicago Tribune) Ald.
Lawrence Bloom, who had built a reputation as a champion of clean government, pleaded guilty in 1998 to a single tax charge and admitted pocketing $14,000 in bribes from John Christopher, a notorious illegal dumper-turned-FBI mole, in return for helping the corrupt contractor’s business ventures. In the plea agreement, Bloom admitted taking a $4,000 bribe from Christopher to help him locate a rock-crushing operation in the 5th Ward and admitted accepting a $10,000 campaign contribution from Christopher during Bloom’s unsuccessful run for city treasurer, in which Bloom promised to help Christopher’s business if he were elected. By pleading guilty in 1988 to taking bribes, Ald.
Lawrence Bloom became the 24th former alderman convicted on corruption-related charges in 26 years. (Chicago Tribune) According to his plea agreement, Bloom tried to hide the $10,000 bribe as if it were a campaign contribution by asking Christopher to come up with a list of phony contributors. The government said that when Christopher said some of the names would belong to dead people, Bloom, captured on audio tape, replied: “The more dead, the better.
” Bloom was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $5,000. Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke departs after turning himself in on Jan.
3, 2019, at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse.
George Quinn / Chicago Tribune Edward Burke, second from right, on the day he was sworn in as alderman is with his mother, Mrs. Anna Burke, and Judge Joseph B. Hermes, left, and the Rev.
Richard Wolfe of Visitation Parish, in City Council Chambers on March 14, 1969. Val Mazzenga/Chicago Tribune Aldermen Edward Burke, left, and Edward Vrdolyak at City Hall on May 7, 1983. Candidate photo Edward M.
Burke is a candidate for alderman in the 14th Ward in 1969. Chicago Tribune historical photo Ald. Edward M.
Burke, 14, at age 25, wheels a baggage cart as he performs his first official duties in the Moskala Armory at 2025 E. 71st St. on July 26, 1969, in Chicago.
Anne Cusack / Chicago Tribune Fierce foes Ald. Tim Evans, left, and Ald. Edward Burke at a Finance Committee meeting Oct.
3, 1986, in Chicago. During the first three years of Harold Washington's first term as Chicago's first black mayor, much of his agenda was blocked because of the "Council Wars." Carl Wagner/Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke, 14th, is the center of a huddle during a City Council meeting on July 13, 1988. Frank Hanes / Chicago Tribune Prior to the election of Ald. Michael Bilandic, 11th, as the acting mayor of Chicago, Ald.
Edward Burke, 14th, left, and Ald. Wilson Frost, 34th, hold a private discussion in a crowded City Council chambers in December 1976. Frost, president pro tem of the council, withdrew from the running for the post as acting mayor.
Anne Cusack / Chicago Tribune Harold Washington, from left, Richard Daley and Jane Byrne at a mayoral debate on Jan. 31, 1983, are "at ease" for a moment after the last question was answered. It was their fourth and final debate.
Ernie Cox Jr. / Chicago Tribune Aldermen Bobby Rush, from left, Timothy Evans, Edward Burke and Lawrence Bloom hold hands and pray at a City Council meeting Sept. 28, 1983.
The original caption said, "They can hold hands together but they can't work together." Bob Fila / Chicago Tribune A downcast Ald. Edward Burke stands with his wife, Anne, as he concedes defeat to state Sen.
Richard M. Daley in the Democratic race for the Cook County state's attorney nomination on March 18, 1980. Karen Engstrom/Chicago Tribune Ald.
Cliff Kelley, left, and Ald. Edward Burke chat during a City Council meeting on April 1, 1987. Chris Walker / Chicago Tribune Before a memorial service for Mayor Harold Washington, fellow aldermen listen to Ald.
Edward Burke, center, at City Hall on Nov. 25, 1987. Those listening to Burke include Ald.
Ed Smith, 28th; Ald. George Hagopian, 30th; Sergeant-at-Arms Robert Robinson; Ald. Roman Pucinski, 41st; Ald.
Patrick O'Connor, 40th; and Ald. Patrick Levar, 45th. Karen Engstrom/Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke, 14th, center, and Ald. Edward Vrdolyak, 10th, second from left, head for a meeting with Mayor Harold Washington on on July 2, 1985, at Chicago City Hall. Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke, 14th, chairman of the city council's Finance Committee, calls for quiet on March 9, 1987, during an exchange between Ald. Timothy Evans, left, and an attorney representing the developers of Park Tower, a public housing project in Evans' 4th Ward. Ray Gora / Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke, center, and residents of New City tour the area around 52nd and Green streets to view the neighborhood's rundown condition in 1975. Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune Mayor Harold Washington and Ald. Edward Burke put aside their political differences as they marched together in the sixth annual 63d Street Christmas Parade on Nov.
23, 1985. Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, left, has a talk with Ald.
Anthony Beale, 9th, during the City Council meeting on June 26, 2013. John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke ignores questions from reporters after participating in a 14th Ward aldermanic candidate forum at New Life Community Church on Jan. 23, 2019. Ernie Cox Jr.
/Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke, left, at a City Council meeting on Sept. 28, 1983.
Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke speaks at the City Council meeting on May 29, 2019.
Shortly after, Mayor Lori Lightfoot cut him off and said, "I will call you when I'm ready to hear from you." Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune Former Chicago Ald. Edward Burke arrives at the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse with wife Anne Burke on Nov. 30, 2023.
Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune Former Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, exits the Dirksen U.S.
Courthouse in Chicago after a guilty verdict in his corruption trial, Dec. 21, 2023. John J.
Kim/Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke sits in the audience section before a 14th Ward aldermanic candidate forum at New Life Community Church on Jan. 23, 2019.
Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke talks to reporters as he leaves his office through the rear exit on election night Feb. 26, 2019.
E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune Ald. Ed Burke, 14th, right, listens to City Council discussion of Mayor Lori Lightfoot's $16.
4 billion 2023 budget on Nov. 7, 2022. John J.
Kim/Chicago Tribune Former Ald. Ed Burke gets into an awaiting vehicle after attending his corruption trial at the Dirksen U.S.
Courthouse, Nov. 28, 2023. John J.
Kim/Chicago Tribune Former 14th Ward Ald. Ed Burke exits after attending his corruption trial at the Dirksen U.S.
Courthouse, Nov. 28, 2023, in Chicago. Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune Former Chicago Ald.
Edward Burke leaves the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse during a lunch break in his corruption trial on Nov.
17, 2023. Charles Osgood/Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, during a news conference after a City Council meeting Dec.
26, 1999. Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune Nearly five years after he was first charged, ex-Chicago Ald. Edward Burke arrives at the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse in Chicago to go on trial in a corruption case. Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke, 14th, rides an elevator down from the second floor of City Hall after attending his final City Council meeting as an alderman on April 19, 2023. Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke, 14th, departs Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago on June 4, 2019 after being arraigned on multiple federal corruption charges.
Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, appears at the Dirksen U.S.
Courthouse on June 4, 2019. He pleaded not guilty to sweeping corruption charges alleging he abused his City Hall clout. Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune Tape covers Ald.
Edward Burke's name on the Finance Committee chairman's office door at City Hall on Jan. 8, 2019. Burke took over as Finance Committee chairman in 1983.
Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke talks with members of the news media outside his home after turning himself in at the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse on Jan. 3, 2019, in Chicago.
Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke arrives home after turning himself in at the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse on Jan. 3, 2019, in Chicago.
Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke talks with members of the news media outside his home after turning himself in earlier at the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse on Jan. 3, 2019, in Chicago.
Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke departs after turning himself in Jan. 3, 2019, at the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse. Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke departs the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse Jan.
3, 2019, after turning himself in. Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke departs the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse on Jan. 3, 2019, after turning himself in.
Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke turns himself in at the Dirksen U.S.
Courthouse in Chicago on Jan. 3, 2019. Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke turns himself in at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago on Jan.
3, 2019. Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke, 14th, leaves his home in Chicago on Jan. 3, 2019. Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke returns to his Southwest Side home Nov. 29, 2018, after federal raids on his offices earlier in the day. Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke returns to his Southwest Side home Nov. 29, 2018, after federal raids on his offices earlier in the day. Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune Ald.
Edward Burke returns to his Southwest Side home Nov. 29, 2018, after federal raids on his offices earlier in the day. Jose M.
Osorio/Chicago Tribune Boxes are carried away by investigators from Ald. Edward Burke's 14th Ward office in the 2600 block of West 51st Street in Chicago on Nov. 29, 2018.
Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune Boxes are carried away by investigators from Ald. Edward Burke's 14th Ward office in the 2600 block of West 51st Street on Nov.
29, 2018, in Chicago. Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune Unidentified people exit Ald.
Edward Burke's 14th Ward office in the 2600 block of West 51st Street on Nov. 29, 2018, in Chicago. The office was closed and the windows covered with brown paper for an FBI investigation.
Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune A Chicago flag sits near a desk inside Ald. Edward Burke's office at City Hall while brown paper covers the glass doors leading inside after federal agents raided the office earlier in the day Nov.
29, 2018. Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune A reporter tries to take a photo through the brown paper lining the glass windows of Ald. Edward Burke's office in City Hall on Nov.
29, 2018. Federal agents raided the office, sources said. Jose M.
Osorio/Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke's 14th Ward office in the 2600 block of West 51st Street is closed and the windows covered for an FBI investigation on Nov. 29, 2018.
Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, was honored at the City Club in Chicago on March 7, 2018, for his 50 years of public service. E.
Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune Ald. Ed Burke, 14th Ward, listens to City Council discussion of Mayor Lori Lightfoot's $16.4 billion 2023 budget on Nov.
7, 2022. Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, at City Hall in Chicago at a special meeting about Mayor Lori Lightfoot's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for city workers on March 16, 2022.
Lacking a quorum, the meeting was adjourned. Ald. Edward Burke departs after turning himself in on Jan.
3, 2019, at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse.
With a 13-term tenure, Ald. Edward Burke was the longest-serving alderman in Chicago history. The silver-haired Burke was known for his style — a pinstriped suit with a tie, a pocket square and monogrammed cufflinks — and a love of history that translated into several books and even a resolution that cleared Catherine O’Leary and her cow from culpability in starting the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
He was also one of the most powerful leaders to ever sit on Chicago’s City Council. Burke, who garnered much of his status by heading the Finance Committee, was convicted in federal court in December 2023 of racketeering conspiracy and a dozen other counts for using the clout of his elected office to win business for his property tax law firm from developers. Deciding against running for reelection, he stepped down from office in May 2023.
Ald. Edward Burke was convicted by a federal jury in December 2023. (Chicago Tribune) In his 54 years on the council, the Southwest Side alderman had been under federal scrutiny several times before but never previously indicted.
At trial, Burke was acquitted on one count of conspiracy to commit extortion related to the redevelopment of a Burger King in his ward, but the guilty verdicts , including on charges he shook down developers wanting to redevelop the Old Post Office, capped a stunning fall for Burke. U.S.
District Judge Virginia Kendall sentenced Burke to two years in prison — eight years less than the 10-year term that prosecutors originally sought — and fined him $2 million. After an hour of deliberation in January 1872, a jury found Ald. Gustav Busse guilty on charges he took $100 to vote for the appointment of Owen Dougherty as the “Police Magistrate” of the “North Side Police Court.
” The verdict was rendered after Dougherty said he was afraid to tell what was said between him and Busse. A motion for a new trial was entered — called the “Farce at Waukegan” by the Tribune — and it began in June 1872. A jury of farmers “uninterested in the case” found Busse not guilty .
Along with Ald. Joseph Montgomery, Busse also was accused of soliciting a bribe from a businessman who owned land on which the city planned to build a school. Saloonkeeper Fred A.
Busse , Gustav’s son, took office as mayor in 1907 and became the first to serve a four-year term. Chicago Ald. Isaac “Ike” Carothers leaves the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse in 2010 after pleading guilty to federal bribery and tax charges. (Chris Walker/ Chicago Tribune) The son of a convicted alderman, Ald.
Isaac “Ike” Carothers pleaded guilty in 2010 to bribery and tax charges as part of Operation Land Scam, an FBI investigation into how property gets developed in Chicago. Carothers admitted his guilt in exchange for a 28-month prison term and offered his resignation. Carothers took the unusual step of agreeing to work undercover for federal authorities, wearing a wire and secretly recording other public officials and businessmen.
His alderman father, William, was convicted 27 years earlier. Chicago Ald. William Carothers walks outside the federal courthouse in 1983 after his conviction.
(Val Mazzenga/Chicago Tribune) Ald. William Carothers was convicted in 1983 of extorting as much as $32,500 in remodeling work for his ward office from the builders of Bethany Hospital and was sentenced to three years in prison. Two years later, he was ordered to help pay $152,000 in damages for organizing, while in prison, a campaign of physical violence conducted by his two sons and another man against a political opponent and the victim’s allies.
Former Ald. Willie Cochran leaves the Dirksen U.S.
Courthouse in Chicago in 2019 after being sentenced. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune) Ald. Willie Cochran was sentenced to one year in prison in 2019 for using his ward charity fund like his personal piggy bank, including to pay for gambling trips, fancy meals and accessories for his Mercedes.
Federal prosecutors dropped 14 of the 15 counts against Cochran, including the most serious charges alleging the alderman shook down businessmen in exchange for his support on deals in his 20th Ward, after he pleaded guilty . Former Ald. Willie Cochran was sentenced in 2019 to one year in prison.
(Chicago Tribune) A former Chicago police officer who was elected to the City Council in 2007, Cochran was indicted in 2016. When the news of his long-rumored indictment became public during a City Council meeting, Cochran quietly exited the chambers as aldermen praised the Cubs’ World Series trophy, which was on display. A police officer running for alderman, Dennis Coughlin was accused of inciting riots and disturbances on Election Day near the ward’s polling places.
He was also accused of attacking a deputy sheriff and severely injuring him. The Tribune rejoiced in the jury’s guilty verdict in April 1857 against one “of those who led on and incited to acts of violence the mob which disgraced our city at the last election. .
.. A few more examples of this kind, and we may begin to hope that our elections will be conducted in an orderly and quiet manner.
” He was fined $100 . Ald. John J.
Coughlin, known as “Bathhouse John,” raps for order at a City Council meeting in 1930. (Chicago Tribune archive) Along with Ald. Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna, John “Bathhouse John” Coughlin was one of the notorious “Lords of the Levee” of Chicago’s red-light district in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Located between what are now 18th and 22nd streets, the Levee got its name from its proximity to wharves in the city and was home to taverns, gambling parlors and brothels, including the famed Everleigh Club . The duo also headed the “Gray Wolves,” a group of corrupt aldermen and other city officials. Coughlin first won election in 1892 and was reelected for decades thereafter.
He and Kenna came to control zoning, policing and prostitution and gambling in the 1st Ward. The two put on the annual 1st Ward Ball , attracting gamblers and politicians, prostitutes and police from every corner of the city for debauchery. Coughlin was never convicted of any crimes.
Then-aldermanic candidate Patrick Daley Thompson speaks outside his campaign office in 2015. (Nuccio DiNuzzo/Chicago Tribune) The grandson of Mayor Richard J. Daley and nephew of Mayor Richard M.
Daley, Chicago’s two longest-serving mayors, Patrick Daley Thompson was convicted by a federal jury in 2022 of two counts of lying to federal regulators about loans he had with the now-shuttered Washington Federal Bank for Savings in his family’s Bridgeport neighborhood. Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson was found guilty in 2022 of two counts of lying to federal regulators about his loans and five counts of filing false tax returns.
(Chicago Tribune) The jury also found Thompson guilty on five counts of filing false tax returns that illegally claimed mortgage interest deductions he never paid. He was sentenced to four months in a federal prison. Former Chicago Ald.
Wallace Davis Jr. leaves the Dirksen U.S.
Courthouse in 1986 after his arraignment on extortion and racketeering charges. (Frank Hanes/Chicago Tribune) Ald. Wallace Davis Jr.
was convicted in 1987 of accepting a $5,000 bribe from an FBI informant, forcing his niece to pay $11,000 in kickbacks from her salary as his ward secretary and extorting $3,000 from the owners of a restaurant in his ward. He was sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison by a federal judge who accused Davis of committing perjury at his trial and castigated him for his lack of remorse after a jury convicted him as part of the federal government’s Operation Incubator probe of City Hall corruption. Ald.
Wallace Davis Jr. was indicted in 1986 as part of Operation Incubator, an undercover investigation into alleged City Hall corruption. (Chicago Tribune) After serving three years in prison, Davis opened a restaurant, Wallace’s Catfish Corner, near the United Center.
He lost a bid to return to the City Council in 1995 and was defeated in a race for 28th Ward Democratic committeeman in 1996. Alderman candidate Jesse J. Evans in 1987.
(Carl Hugare/Chicago Tribune) As part of the undercover Operation Silver Shovel corruption probe, Ald. Jesse Evans was captured on audio and videotape pocketing four cash payoffs totaling $7,300 from an undercover FBI agent posing as a corrupt contractor. In return for the money, Evans sent city street sweepers to regularly clean near a construction site in his South Side 21st Ward.
Ald. Jesse Evans was sentenced in 1997 to 41 months in prison. He refused to admit wrongdoing.
(Chicago Tribune) A federal jury also convicted him in 1987 of extorting $10,000 from a longtime foe to support his unpopular rock-crushing operation and obtaining a new tile floor in the basement of his home from a grocer seeking backing for a liquor license. Evans was sentenced in 1997 to 41 months in prison. Former Chicago Ald.
Lou Farina walks into the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse during his corruption trial in 1983.
(Ernie Cox Jr./Chicago Tribune) Ald. Louis Farina was convicted in December 1983 of conspiring to extort $7,000 in payoffs from building contractors in exchange for help in obtaining city permits to rehabilitate an apartment building.
Once known as the clown prince of Chicago government, Farina served a year in prison and then got a job as a consultant for Safer Foundation, an organization that helps former prison inmates. Farina was indicted and then convicted with Cook County Commissioner Martin Tuchow. Ald.
Percy Giles leaves the federal courthouse in 1999 after being convicted of racketeering, extortion, fraud and tax evasion. (Phil Velasquez/Chicago Tribune) Former Ald. Percy Giles was sentenced to 39 months in prison for pocketing more than $91,000 in extortion and bribe money as part of the federal Operation Silver Shovel investigation of corruption at City Hall.
Giles had served as alderman of the West Side’s 37th Ward from 1986 through 1999 when he resigned after a federal jury convicted him of taking $10,000 in bribes from government mole John Christopher and extorting an additional $81,200 to thwart city efforts to shut down a refuse dump in his ward. In sentencing the former alderman, the judge in his case said he violated his constituents’ trust and “clearly worked against the interests of the citizens of the 37th Ward.” Referring to his involvement with Christopher, she told Giles, “If you lie down with dogs, you will get fleas.
” Ald. William Henry with his car near Independence Square Fountain in Chicago in 1988. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune) Ald.
William Henry was a West Side politician who learned at the feet of ward bosses until he took over the 24th Ward seat in 1983 and served until 1991, when he was defeated by Jesse Miller. Known at City Hall as “Wild Bill” Henry, he pleaded not guilty in 1990 to charges he extorted cash and luxury cars from a car rental firm, took bribes from a West Side janitorial company and put “ghost workers” on the city payroll in exchange for kickbacks. Henry told reporters that his indictment was a ”smear campaign.
” He died in 1992, halting the case against him. Former Chicago Ald. Fred Hubbard, shown in 1972, pleaded guilty to embezzling nearly $100,000 from a federally funded jobs program he had headed.
(Chicago Tribune) Ald. Fred Hubbard disappeared in May 1971 with $100,000 from the Chicago Plan, a federally funded jobs program he had headed. He was arrested by FBI agents in August 1972 at a poker game in a suburb of Los Angeles .
Hubbard was brought back to Chicago, where he pleaded guilty to 16 counts of embezzlement and was sentenced to two years in prison in January 1973. Ald. Fred Hubbard, who disappeared 15 months prior, was found by FBI agents in 1972 at a poker game in Los Angeles.
(Chicago Tribune) After serving all but 10 weeks of his prison term, he ended up driving a cab. Later, Hubbard used a false name, Andrew Thomas, to land a job as a substitute teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. The ruse was discovered in 1986 when Hubbard, then 57, was accused of propositioning a 13-year-old girl at a grade school.
In recent years, he was back behind the wheel of a taxi, but he lost that livelihood in 1991 when his driver’s license was suspended. Chicago Ald. Marian Humes arrives at the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse in 1987 for her arraignment on corruption charges. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune) An elementary school teacher in Chicago for 20 years, Ald.
Marian Humes represented the 8th Ward in the City Council for 10 years before she was caught taking bribes in the 1980s as part of Operation Incubator . She pleaded guilty in 1989 to taking $5,000 to help a New York firm win city contracts; $1,000 to help an O’Hare International Airport contractor, and $5,000, disguised as a political contribution, from an FBI mole. She was initially sentenced to two years in prison, but that was later reduced to a six-month work-release program because of a worsening diabetic condition.
She died in 2010. Former Chicago Ald. Perry Hutchinson leaves the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse after being sentenced to 11 years in prison for fraud. (Ernie Cox/Chicago Tribune) Former Ald.
Perry Hutchinson, an insurance agent and business consultant, was convicted in 1988 in an elaborate insurance-fraud scheme that involved 17 phony auto accidents and “victims” who dramatically feigned injuries to collect more than $250,000. In 1989, he also pleaded guilty to taking $42,200 from an FBI mole. Hutchinson served only one term in the City Council.
Before his indictments, he received widespread public attention only once — when he showed up in a wheelchair to a 1986 council meeting to cast votes on behalf of Mayor Harold Washington when Washington finally prevailed in the bitter council wars . Hutchinson had left a previous council meeting and said it was because of complications from high blood pressure. Hutchinson died in 1992 while serving an 11-year prison sentence.
Sandi Jackson and husband Jesse Jackson Jr., behind her to the right, after their 2013 sentencing in Washington. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune) The wife of former U.
S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.
, Ald. Sandi Jackson was involved in most of her husband’s illicit spending and did not declare about $600,000 in taxable income, prosecutors said. Jesse Jackson Jr.
and Sandi Jackson were sentenced to prison in 2013. (Chicago Tribune) She pleaded guilty in February 2013 to one felony count of filing false U.S.
income tax returns and was sentenced to one year in prison. Jackson’s actions occurred during a bizarre crime spree in which her husband looted about $750,000 from his federal campaign treasury and spent the money on vacations, furs, celebrity memorabilia and two mounted elk heads, among other things. Jesse Jackson Jr.
served about 22 months of a 30-month sentence. Ald. Joseph Jambrone died in 1974 while appealing his conviction.
(Chicago Tribune archive) Former Ald. Joseph Jambrone was convicted in 1973 of accepting payoffs of $4,000 and $1,000 in return for his support for zoning changes in his ward. It took the jury just half an hour to reach its verdict.
“If verdicts like this, rendered by conscientious citizens who have simply had it with graft and corruption, don’t serve as an effective deterrent to violators of the public trust, then nothing ever will,” U.S. Attorney and future Illinois Gov.
James R. Thompson said. Jambrone died in 1974 while appealing his conviction.
Virgil Jones talks with reporters in 1999 after being sentenced for extortion in Operation Silver Shovel. (Todd Panagopoulos/Chicago Tribune) On leave as a Chicago police officer since being elected 15th Ward alderman in 1991, Ald. Virgil Jones was convicted in early 1999 as part of Operation Silver Shovel for pocketing two payoffs — one rolled up in a newspaper and the other in a paper bag — totaling $7,000.
The money came from John Christopher, a notorious contractor who worked undercover and wore a hidden recorder in the public corruption probe. Jones, who lost his seat on City Council as a result of his conviction, agreed to help obtain a city permit so Christopher could run a controversial rock-crushing operation in his ward. He was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
Former Chicago Ald. Thomas Keane is paroled from federal prison in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1978. (Tribune archive photo) Mayor Richard J.
Daley’s floor leader, chairman of the council’s powerful Finance Committee and the man often described as the second-most powerful figure in the city, Ald. Thomas Keane was convicted in 1974 of mail fraud and conspiracy for using his inside knowledge and influence to further a scheme to buy nearly 1,900 parcels of tax-delinquent property and sell them to the city and other government agencies at inflated prices. He was sentenced to five years in prison and fined $27,000.
James R. Thompson, then U.S.
attorney and future Illinois governor, was elated by the conviction. “This is more important than any other verdict rendered in this building,” he said. When asked if he was sorry about the 1974 verdict, Keane said: “What is there to be sorry about?” Months earlier, Keane was acquitted on charges of conflict of interest, official misconduct and conspiracy related to votes he and Ald.
Edwin Fifielski cast for ordinances that certified banks — including ones they held stock in. Keane’s political roots on the Northwest Side ran deep. His father, Thomas P.
Keane , was a longtime worker in the 31st Ward Democratic organization, served three terms in the state legislature and was elected alderman in 1931. The younger Keane was elected to the state Senate in 1938 and then took over the 31st Ward aldermanic seat in 1945 when his father died. Keane, who regained his license to practice law after serving 22 months in prison, died in 1996 at age 90.
Former Ald. Clifford Kelley arrives at the Dirksen building in 1987, where he was to be sentenced on charges of accepting bribes. (Val Mazzenga/Chicago Tribune) Ald.
Clifford Kelley pleaded guilty in June 1987 to charges he accepted $6,500 from Waste Management Inc., the world’s biggest trash hauler, and $30,000 from a New York bill-collection agency vying for lucrative city work. A flamboyant 16-year Chicago City Council veteran, Kelley was sentenced to one year in prison and served nine months in a minimum-security prison in Duluth, Minnesota.
His conviction was part of the federal Operation Incubator investigation of City Hall corruption. After his release, Kelley became a radio talk-show host. Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna, one of the notorious “Lords of the Levee.
” (Chicago Tribune archive) Along with “Bathhouse John” Coughlin, Ald. Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna was one of the notorious “Lords of the Levee” of Chicago’s red-light district in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Located between what are now 18th and 22nd streets, the Levee got its name from its proximity to wharves in the city and was home to taverns, gambling parlors and brothels, including the famed Everleigh Club .
The duo also headed the “Gray Wolves,” a group of corrupt aldermen and other city officials. Coughlin and Kenna came to control zoning, policing and prostitution and gambling in the 1st Ward. The two put on the annual 1st Ward Ball , attracting gamblers and politicians, prostitutes and police from every corner of the city for debauchery.
Former Ald. Tyrone Kenner, a former Chicago police officer, was convicted in 1983. (Ernie Cox Jr.
/Chicago Tribune) A former Chicago police officer, Ald. Tyrone Kenner was convicted in 1983 of accepting $15,500 in bribes to help more than a dozen people get jobs as Cook County sheriff’s deputies and to arrange for two men to receive passing grades on a test to become city electricians. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
A federal grand jury indicted Kenner based on secretly taped conversations in which he discussed taking payments of $500 to $2,500 for helping people get part-time deputy jobs with the Cook County sheriff’s office. Judge Susan Getzendanner described Ald. Tyrone Kenner’s violation of the public trust “as the worst sort of crime” at his 1983 sentencing.
(Chicago Tribune) After serving 20 months in prison, Kenner emerged to find work as a prizefighter’s manager and as the operator of a South Side lounge. He ran unsuccessfully in 1991 and 1995 to return to the council as 3rd Ward alderman, and he lost a 1992 bid for the state legislature. He was on the City Council for 12 years and died in 2009.
Along with former Tollway Director Robert Hickman, former Ald. Joseph Kotlarz orchestrated a 1991 land deal between Waste Management Inc. and the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority that enabled Kotlarz to steal $190,000 from the tollway.
At the time of transaction, Kotlarz was an agent with Waste Management who was between service as an alderman and a state representative and Hickman was tollway executive director. Former alderman Joseph Kotlarz was indicted in 1995 with the former executive director of the Illinois Toll Highway Authority on charges of theft and conspiracy. (Chicago Tribune) DuPage County Circuit Judge Ronald Mehling called the transaction a “shell game” when Kotlarz and Hickman were convicted together in April 1997.
Kotlarz served a six-month sentence and was ordered to pay $190,000 in restitution. Prosecutors never showed that Hickman benefited from the transaction but convicted him on the basis of aiding the fraudulent scheme. Former Chicago City Clerk Walter Kozubowski, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud and tax evasion, leaves the federal court building in 1993 after his sentencing.
(Val Mazzenga/Chicago Tribune) City Clerk Walter Kozubowski admitted he paid several lawyers, a public relations chief, a clerk in the 14th Ward Regular Democratic Organization and others a full salary even though they did little or no work in the clerk’s office. City officials said the ghost payrolling cost taxpayers nearly $500,000. Kozubowski, who was city clerk for 14 years, was sentenced to five years in prison.
He resigned 10 days after pleading guilty but only amid mounting political pressure to do so; he had said he intended to stay on as city clerk until he was scheduled to be sentenced months later. Former Chicago Ald. Chester Kuta enters the subway near the Dirksen building in 1987.
He pleaded guilty in a shakedown scheme. (Chuck Berman/Chicago Tribune) Ald. Chester Kuta pleaded guilty in 1987 to participating in a shakedown scheme that allegedly extorted about $60,000 from a businessman who sought to open a flea market in Kuta’s West Side ward.
He was sentenced to 60 days’ work release, fined $5,000 and ordered to perform 1,000 house of community service. Kuta and businessman Leonard Kraus were allowed to plead guilty to their roles in the alleged scheme as part of an agreement under which they would testify as key witnesses against former state Sen. Edward Nedza, who at the time was still the 31st Ward Democratic committeeman.
Former Ald. Chester Kuta pleaded guilty in 1987 to participating in a shakedown scheme that allegedly extorted about $60,000 from a businessman who sought to open a flea market. (Chicago Tribune) The three men were among 11 charged as part of the sweeping Operation Phocus federal investigation into the city’s system for licensing businesses and enforcing city codes.
Ald. Frank Kuta, shown in his office in 1972, was convicted in 1974 of accepting a $1,500 bribe in a zoning case. (Walter Kale/Chicago Tribune) Ald.
Frank Kuta, who replaced Joseph Potempa in the council after Potempa pleaded guilty to corruption charges, was convicted in 1974 of accepting a $1,500 bribe on a zoning case and was sentenced to six months in prison. In 1981, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that Kuta had, “by clear and convincing evidence, established his rehabilitation” and could get his law license back — as soon as he gave the city $1,500 for the bribe money he had extorted. He paid the city and opened a law office on the Southwest Side.
Former Chicago City Clerk James Laski was arraigned in 2006 on charges stemming from the Hired Truck Program. (David Klobucar/Chicago Tribune) Former Chicago City Clerk James Laski pleaded guilty to one count of bribery and became the highest-ranking city official charged in the federal probe of the city’s Hired Truck Program. He was barred from practicing law in Illinois.
Sentenced to two years in prison, Laski served about one year. Former Chicago City Clerk James Laski was sentenced in 2006 to two years in prison for accepting nearly $50,000 in bribes. (Chicago Tribune) Prosecutors said he solicited bribes totaling about $48,000 from two friends after interceding on their behalf with other city officials and obtaining Hired Truck work for separate trucking companies.
They also said he was involved in ghost payrolling while an alderman in the early 1990s. A onetime protege of former U.S.
Rep. William Lipinski, Laski was elected city clerk in 1995, a post he held until his resignation in 2006 following his indictment. Former Ald.
Anthony Laurino, shown outside his ward office in 1984, bragged of learning politics at the knees of “Bathhouse” John Coughlin and Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna. (Don Casper/Chicago Tribune) Ald. Anthony Laurino, who bragged of learning politics at the knees of “Bathhouse” John Coughlin and Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna, was indicted in 1995 on charges that he hired dozens of friends, relatives and cronies for no-work city jobs — at a cost to the taxpayers of nearly $1.
5 million in pay and health benefits. A month later, he was further accused of forcing the wife of a close friend to kick back about $77,000 — or half of her pay — from a ghost-payrolling job . While Laurino denied the charges, several members of his family were convicted, including his wife and another daughter, Marie D’Amico .
The indictments came a year after he stepped down as alderman — with his daughter taking over his council seat — and Laurino’s trial was indefinitely postponed in 1996 because of his ill health. He had became alderman in 1965 and his political career on the City Council spanned nearly three decades. He died in 1999.
Former Ald. John Madrzyk, left, leaves federal court in 1998 with his lawyer during a break in his testimony in a ghost payrolling trial. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune) Ald.
John Madrzyk was sentenced to 41 months in prison in September 1998 as part of the federal probe of ghost-payrolling dubbed Operation Haunted Hall because many of the targets were on payrolls at City Hall. As chairman of the council’s Special Events Committee, Madrzyk paid his daughter-in-law $33,764 over a 14-month period even though she did no work for the committee. Madrzyk also admitted pocketing kickbacks from two other ghost-payrollers.
He was alderman of the 13th Ward, the home ward of onetime powerful Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, from 1973 to 1994. Ald. Joseph Martinez, shown at City Hall in 1981, pleaded guilty to accepting money for three ghost-payroll jobs after his aldermanic service.
(Jerry Tomaselli/Chicago Tribune) Ald. Joseph Martinez, who served in the council in the early 1980s, pleaded guilty to accepting pay for three no-work, ghost-payroll jobs at City Hall. These positions, obtained during Martinez’s postaldermanic career, were with three City Council committees, including the Finance Committee, headed by Ald.
Edward Burke, 14th. Martinez held these positions even though he was working full time in Burke’s law firm. Martinez, also a former protege of convicted Ald.
Thomas Keane, was sentenced to five months in prison and five months of home confinement in January 1998. Former Ald. Ambrosio Medrano holds the hand of his wife, Maria, as he walks to the Dirksen federal courthouse in 1995.
(John Kringas/Chicago Tribune) Ald. Ambrosio Medrano pleaded guilty in 1996 to taking $31,000 in bribes from government mole John Christopher and an undercover FBI agent and to placing two political associates in no-work jobs on the staff of the City Council’s Housing Committee as part of the Operation Silver Shovel investigation. After serving nearly two years in federal prison, he was released from a halfway house in September 1998.
Medrano was convicted of corruption twice more, including for a 2010 bribery scheme to influence a bandage contract at Stroger Hospital (sentenced to 10 1/2 years ) and plotting with a Nebraska businessman to pay off a Los Angeles official for a mail-order pharmaceutical contract with the Cook County hospital system (sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison). Joseph A. Montgomery was among a group of corrupt officials nicknamed the “ring aldermen.
” He was convicted of bribery in January 1872, jailed for six months and received a $100 fine. Montgomery, the court ruled, had received $1,900 for the “sale of his influence” as an aldermen, the Tribune reported. Along with Ald.
Gustav Busse, Montgomery was also accused of soliciting a bribe from a businessman who owned land on which the city planned to build a school. Former Chicago Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno arrives at the Leighton Criminal Court Building in 2021.
(Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune) Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno served the 1st Ward from 2010 to 2019 before he lost his bid for reelection amid a series of scandals, including in January 2019 when he was accused of lending his Audi to a woman he was dating and then reporting it stolen. Moreno pleaded guilty to charges of obstruction and filing a false police report.
Ald. Ricardo Muñoz arrives to Cook County Circuit Court in 2019. (Jose M.
Osorio/Chicago Tribune) A longtime alderman of the West Side’s 22nd Ward, Ricardo Muñoz pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering for stealing tens of thousands of dollars from a political campaign fund he controlled and spending it on Los Angeles Kings hockey game tickets, hotel rooms, jewelry, women’s clothing, iPhones, aerial sightseeing trips and skydiving excursions. Muñoz, who was alderman from 1993 to 2019, also transferred $16,000 to pay college tuition for an unidentified person, according to the charges. He was sentenced in 2022 to 13 months in prison.
Ald. Joesph Potempa pleaded guilty to corruption charges in 1973. (Chicago Tribune archive) A Republican, Ald.
Joseph Potempa pleaded guilty in 1973 to accepting a $3,000 bribe for a zoning change and failing to report $9,000 in bribes in two rezoning cases on income-tax returns. Potempa was sentenced to serve a year and a day in prison. He died in November 1995.
A meeting of the Chicago City Council briefly turned into a party celebrating the 70th birthday of Ald. Johnny “De Pow” Powers in 1922. (Chicago Tribune archive) Along with “Bathhouse John” Coughlin and Michael “Hinky Dink” Kenna, Ald.
Johnny “De Pow” Powers was one of the notorious Grey Wolves of the Chicago City Council in the early 20th century. Known by many in Chicago as “Prince of the Boodlers,” Powers was constantly criticized for corruption, cronyism and bribery but was never charged with wrongdoing. In 1920, a bomb exploded at his home, launching the infamous Aldermen’s Wars.
Anthony D’Andrea challenged Powers for alderman, sparking an election marked by violence. After Powers narrowly won, D’Andrea was assassinated. Ald.
Fred Roti makes a statement and answers questions at City Hall after being indicted in 1990. (Carl Wagner/Chicago Tribune) Fred Roti, long reputed to be organized crime’s representative in the City Council, spent more than 50 years in government in posts ranging from city drain inspector to state senator. He was best known as the alderman of the old 1st Ward, which then included the Loop, and he served from 1968 until a few months after his 1990 indictment on corruption charges.
Ald. Fred Roti was sentenced in 1993 to four years in prison. (Chicago Tribune) Nicknamed “Peanuts” because of his diminutive size, Roti was sentenced to four years in prison after being convicted in 1993 of taking $10,000 for influencing a civil court case and $7,500 to support a routine zoning change in his ward.
In 1989, it was revealed that federal agents as part of Operation Gambat had made video and voice recordings at Booth One, the spot in Counsellors Row restaurant across La Salle Street from City Hall where Roti and his political cronies often would gather. A federal jury convicted him of 11 counts but cleared Roti of charges he took thousands of dollars to fix a Chinatown murder trial in 1981. Treasurer Miriam Santos talks to reporters after meeting with Mayor Richard M.
Daley in 1991. (Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune) Miriam Santos, the first Hispanic person elected to citywide office, spent a little more than three months in a downstate prison camp for an extortion conviction. She had been recorded on a phone call urging a broker doing business with her office to “belly up” and make campaign contributions to the state Democratic Party, insisting: “This is not a choice.
” The extortion conviction was later overturned on appeal. Chicago City Treasurer Miriam Santos entered a guilty plea in 2000 that ended her tenure. (Chicago Tribune) But as federal prosecutors were preparing for a retrial, Santos reached a deal where she pleaded guilty in 2000 to illegally using employees in the treasurer’s office to do campaign work on city time for her unsuccessful 1998 bid for Illinois attorney general.
She wasn’t required to spend more time in prison. Former Ald. Edward Scholl pleaded guilty in 1975 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
(Arthur Walker/Chicago Tribune) A former alderman from the 41st Ward, Edward Scholl pleaded guilty in 1975 to filing false tax returns in 1971 and 1972 that were tied to accusations he took $6,850 in bribes from a contractor to permit zoning changes in his Far Northwest Side ward. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Scholl was a rare successful Republican politician in Chicago and was the youngest member of the Chicago City Council when he was first elected in 1963 at age 25.
He was reelected in 1967 and 1971 before being elected to the state senate in 1972. He lost a reelection bid for senate in 1974. FBI mole and former Ald.
Daniel Solis arrives at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse for the trial of Edward Burke in 2023.
(Antonio Perez/ Chicago Tribune) A former Chicago alderman who turned government mole to help federal investigators build cases against Ald. Edward Burke and ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan , Daniel Solis was charged with bribery in April 2022. The bare-bones, one-count criminal information alleged Solis, who abruptly retired as 25th Ward alderman in 2018 before his cooperation with the FBI was revealed, corruptly solicited campaign donations from an unidentified real estate developer in exchange for zoning changes in 2015, when Solis was head of the City Council Zoning Committee.
Solis entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office, which agreed to drop bribery charges against him in 2025 if he continues to cooperate.
Ald. Casimir Staszcuk leaves the Dirsken federal building with his wife, Adele, after a jury convicted him of nine counts of extortion in 1973. (Ovie Carter/Chicago Tribune) Ald.
Casmir Staszcuk was convicted in 1973 of accepting three bribes, totaling $9,000, to back zoning changes in his ward. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Staszcuk was elected alderman in 1967.
Prosecutors said he accepted three payments of $3,000 each from a “zoning consultant” who testified he made the payments on behalf of his clients in return for Staszcuk’s agreement not to oppose their applications for zoning amendments relating to three pieces of property in the 13th Ward. Former Ald. Allan Streeter walks through City Hall in 1996.
(Chris Walker/Chicago Tribune) Ald. Allan Streeter pleaded guilty in 1996 to taking $37,020 in bribes from government mole John Christopher and an undercover FBI agent as part of the Operation Silver Shovel investigation. Streeter, who secretly taped conversations with colleagues for investigators, was sentenced to a reduced term of eight months in prison in June 1998 as a result of his assistance in the continuing federal investigation of official corruption.
At Streeter’s sentencing, federal prosecutors took the occasion to denounce aldermen who castigated Streeter when his unprecedented cooperation came to light, noting Streeter had been called a “rat,” a “Judas” and a “pimp.” Prosecutors at the time said the comments from Streeter’s former colleagues on the council suggested “there’s still a lot of work to be done” in fighting corruption at City Hall. Ald.
Donald Swinarski, left, leaves the federal building with an attorney after his 1975 sentencing. He pleaded guilty to accepting bribes. (Michael Budrys/Chicago Tribune) A former alderman and state senator, Donald Swinarski pleaded guilty in 1975 to accepting $7,800 in three bribes to approve zoning changes in his ward.
He was sentenced to one year and a day in prison. After serving four months in prison, Swinarski got a job running a restaurant in Florida. Contacted in Fort Lauderdale in 1997, Swinarski declined to be interviewed.
“I have been gone for 20 years,” he said. Chicago Tribune historical photo William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson was Chicago’s last Republican mayor. (Chicago Tribune Historical Photo) Chicago’s last Republican mayor, William Hale Thompson stood 6 feet tall and weighed 240 pounds, earning him the nickname “Big Bill.
” Thompson served two consecutive terms, from 1915 to 1923, and then came back for a third during much of Prohibition. When elected mayor in 1927 — with support from Chicago Outfit boss Al Capone — jubilant supporters flocked to his Fish Fans’ Club boat, well known as a floating speakeasy in Belmont Harbor. So many people climbed aboard that the boat sank into the mud.
‘Big Bill’ Thompson: Chicago’s unfiltered mayor During his final term, Thompson was criticized for allowing corruption and putting the city into debt. Of Thompson the Tribune wrote, “He made Chicago a byword for the collapse of American civilization.” He was defeated in 1931 by Anton Cermak , beginning the still-uninterrupted run of Democratic Party control of City Hall.
Thompson is considered among Chicago’s most notorious mayors despite not being charged with any crimes. After he died in 1944 at the Blackstone Hotel, $1.8 million was found in two of his safe deposit boxes.
Ald. Arenda Troutman is surrounded by supporters at a 2007 City Hall news conference where she defended her record. She was sentenced to prison in 2009.
(Chuck Berman/Chicago Tribune) Ald. Arenda Troutman was sentenced to four years in prison in 2009 for mail and tax fraud after admitting that for several years she had solicited cash from developers to back their projects in her South Side ward. Prosecutors described Troutman as a public official who accepted bribes and fraternized with gang members.
Former Ald. Arenda Troutman was captured on tape promising to smooth the way for a development before asking, “What do I get out of it?” (Chicago Tribune) After she was charged with corruption in early 2007, Troutman defiantly denied wrongdoing and suggested she had been targeted for political reasons. In detailing the evidence against Troutman, prosecutors included recorded conversations in which she compared politics in Chicago to prostitution.
“Most aldermen, most politicians are hos,” she said. Former Ald. Edward Vrdolyak talks with reporters as he leaves the the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse in 2009. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune) One of Chicago’s most infamous aldermen, Edward Vrdolyak became a national figure by leading a mostly white bloc of 29 City Council members to oppose the efforts of the city’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington.
Nicknamed “Fast Eddie,” Vrdolyak was alderman of the Southeast Side’s 10th Ward from 1971 to 1987, the year he, appearing on the Illinois Solidarity Party ticket, ran for mayor against Washington and lost. Years later, Vrdolyak was charged and pleaded guilty on two separate occasions. In 2009, he was sentenced to 10 months in prison after pleading guilty the previous year to conspiring to commit mail fraud in a scheme to collect a $1.
5 million fee when Rosalind Franklin University went to sell a Gold Coast property. He served about five months of an 18-month sentence for a 2019 guilty plea to a tax charge alleging he obstructed an IRS investigation into payments to and from a friend and associate related to the state’s $9.2 billion settlement with tobacco companies in the late 1990s.
Former state Rep. and Chicago Ald. John Wall surrenders to U.
S. marshals in Chicago in 1974. (Jack Dykinga/Chicago Tribune) John Wall, alderman of the 11th Ward from 1947 to 1951, former 11th Ward Republican committeeman and an Illinois state legislator representing the 23rd District for seven terms, died in 1994.
Mr. Wall was the alderman representing the Bridgeport neighborhood just before the late Mayor Richard J. Daley strengthened the Democratic hold on the area.
Wall became the Republican ward committeeman in 1952. While in the state legislature, he chaired the House Committee on Registration and Regulation. He was convicted in 1978 of conspiring to extort $2,000 in exchange for help in trying to pass a law benefitting private employment agencies.
Wall was sentenced to seven years in prison. Ald. Paul Wigoda arrives at the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse in 1974 for arraignment on charges of receiving a bribe in a zoning case. (James O’Leary/Chicago Tribune) Alderman of the Far North Side’s 49th Ward who also shared law offices with influential Ald.
Thomas Keane, Paul Wigoda was convicted in 1974 of taking a $50,000 bribe in exchange for his support for a zoning change for the former Edgewater Golf Club in a nearby ward. After serving a year and a day in prison, Wigoda won reinstatement as a lawyer and went into business as a zoning attorney. Ald.
Stanley Zydlo, shown in 1974, pleaded guilty in 1980 to bribery. (William Kelly/Chicago Tribune) A tavern owner before he entered public life, Ald. Stanley Zydlo pleaded guilty in 1980 to paying a $1,000 bribe to have the test results altered for a Fire Department physical entrance exam taken by two relatives.
Zydlo was elected without opposition in 1963 and retired in 1978 because of failing health. Zydlo was sentenced to six months in a prison work-release program and died in 1989. Interested in exploring the Tribune’s archives further? We’re partnering with Newspapers.
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