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 downstate and suburban 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 Judges Cook County officials Chicago officials “I take responsibility for my actions, and I plead guilty ,” James Adamek Jr.
told U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman in August 1997, one week after he was charged with stealing more than $180,000 through a fraudulent expense scheme while he was mayor of Posen from 1989 to 1995.
Adamek’s thefts contributed to the village’s budget deficit of about $800,000. Adamek was sentenced to 15 months in prison in January 1998. Even though much of the money went to support Adamek’s stripper girlfriend, his wife, Ronda, voiced strong support for him at his sentencing, “We love you very much, your children love you very much, and we all forgave you for this a long time ago.
” Kane County State’s Attorney Eugene Armentrout appears at the Kane County Courthouse in 1979 on charges of forging petition signatures. (William Yates/Chicago Tribune) Kane County State’s Attorney Eugene Armentrout pleaded guilty to forging names on petitions for Gov. Jim Thompson’s statewide advisory referendum known as the Thompson Proposition , which asked voters if they wanted a ceiling on government taxes and spending.
Armentrout was fined $2,000 but said he would not resign: “I’m not perfect and I never pretended to be.” His law license was later suspended for two years. The charges arose from election code violations linked to when Armentrout organized “roundtabling” efforts to gain signatures for the Thompson referendum.
Nicholas Blase at home in Niles after being released from a one-year prison sentence in 2011. (William DeShazer/ Chicago Tribune) Mayor of Niles for nearly 50 years, Nicholas Blase was arrested on federal corruption charges in 2006 after agents raided an insurance agency that allegedly paid kickbacks to the longtime mayor. Blase stepped down as mayor two years later.
Longtime Niles Mayor Nicholas Blase was sentenced in 2010 to a year and a day in prison for profiting from a kickback scheme that lasted decades. (Chicago Tribune) He was sentenced in January 2010 to one year and one day in prison after being convicted in the three-decade-long kickback scheme, from which he pocketed $420,000. He had pleaded guilty to mail fraud and filing false tax returns.
Before starting his prison term, the former mayor paid about $1 million in restitution, including $750,000 to Niles schools. His sentence ended in 2011 and he died in June 2019. Joseph Coglianese, Chicago Ridge village board president, in 1974.
Editor’s note: This historic print shows a hand-painted background and crop marks. (Chicago Tribune archive) Joseph Coglianese, the Chicago Ridge village board president and vice president of an Alsip scrap metal company, was indicted on charges of extortion, filing false income tax returns and conspiracy in November 1974 in a shakedown scheme that allegedly netted Coglianese and seven others about $100,000. James R.
Thompson, U.S. attorney at the time and Illinois’ future governor, described the cabal — which targeted construction firms and other businesses that needed official approval to operate in the southwest suburb — as “the most massive conspiracy I have ever seen in village government.
” Coglianese, who was ringleader in the scheme, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and fined $10,000. He died in 1998. Former Dixon comptroller Rita Crundwell exits the Lee County Courthouse after her arraignment on felony theft charges, Oct.
31, 2012, in Dixon. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune) John J.
Kim, Chicago Tribune Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell walks into Judge Ronald Jacobson's courtroom Oct. 31, 2012, at the Lee County Courthouse in Dixon for her arraignment on felony theft charges Stacey Wescott/Chicago Tribune Rita Crundwell, former Dixon comptroller, turns away as her attorney speaks with reporters Nov. 14, 2012, after Crundwell pleaded guilty to fraud in federal court in Rockford.
Stacey Wescott, Chicago Tribune Rita Crundwell, former comptroller for Dixon, is led away by her attorney, Paul Gaziano, after Crundwell pleading guilty Nov. 14, 2012, in court in Rockford. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune "Good I Will Be," a performance stallion, is expected to draw the most money at the auction of Rita Crundwell's assets.
Phil Velasquez, Chicago Tribune Rita Crundwell, center, comptroller and treasurer for three decades in Dixon, leaves the federal courthouse in Rockford on May 7, 2012. Crundwell allegedly took almost $54 million from the small city in a decades-long scam to finance her Dixon ranch. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune A chandelier made of guns and spurs adorns Rita Crundwell's personal home in Dixon.
Her possessions are being auctioned and her home will be sold in a forfeiture sale. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune A welcoming area and trophy room of the horse ranch of former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell. John J.
Kim, Chicago Tribune Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell stands in front of Judge Ronald Jacobson at the Lee County Courthouse during her arraignment on felony theft charges Oct. 31, 2012. Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune Hundreds of trophies won in equestrian competitions by convicted felon Rita Crundwell sit inside a Rockford warehouse Nov.
16, 2015. They will be up for auction by the U.S.
Marshals Service. Chicago Tribune Auctioneers sell ranch equipment on the second day of the federal auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon, Ill. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune A 5-foot-wide television and a bed are part of the master bedroom area of Rita Crundwell's home in Dixon.
Her possessions are being auctioned and her home will be sold in a forfeiture sale. Phil Velasquez, Chicago Tribune The Meri-J Ranch in Beloit, Wis., owned by Rita Crundwell, produced more than 50 world champions, according to the American Quarter Horse Association.
Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune A heated and air-conditioned dog kennel is part of Rita Crundwell's home in Dixon. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune Buddy Martin, left, an auction company worker, talks to potential buyers during a preview of the upcoming live auction. Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune Rita Crundwell trophies that sit inside a Rockford warehouse Nov.
16, 2015, will be up for auction by the U.S. Marshals Service.
Alex Garcia. Chicago Tribune Auctioneers Chris Staley, top, and Gary Wessels, right, look for bids for barn equipment on the second day of the federal auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon, Ill. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune A baby grand piano at Rita Crundwell's home will be sold at auction.
Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune Horses that will be sold gallop inside their pen during a preview of the upcoming live auction. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune Unforgettable watches a potential buyer during a preview of the upcoming live auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune A view of the horse auction on the second day of the federal auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon.
Armando L. Sanchez, Chicago Tribune A prospective buyer reclines a couch in Rita Crundwell's motor home at the Oak Creek Police Department in Oak Creek, Wis. Armando L.
Sanchez, Chicago Tribune A prospective buyer takes a picture of Rita Crundwell's motor home at the Oak Creek Police Department in Oak Creek, Wis. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune Horses on the ranch of Rita Crundwell in Dixon. The Dixon ranch was primarily used for breeding.
Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune Hundreds of trophies won in equestrian competitions by convicted felon Rita Crundwell sit inside a Rockford warehouse Nov. 16, 2015. They will be up for auction by the U.
S. Marshals Service. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune Potential buyers inspect and photograph horses in a barn during a preview of the upcoming auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon.
Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune Gold-plated show harnesses are laid out during a preview of the upcoming live auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune Two horses reside in a stall of the horse ranch of Rita Crundwell in Dixon. The ranch, which housed almost 270 horses, was primarily used for breeding.
Chicago Tribune Good I Will Be, a horse that sold for $775,000, is walked way by his trainer, Leonard Berryhill, to a waiting trailer on the second day of the federal auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon, Ill. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune Awards on display at the horse ranch of former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell. Armando L.
Sanchez, Chicago Tribune Rita Crundwell's motor home sits in the parking lot of the Oak Creek Police Department in Oak Creek, Wis. The motor home owned by Crundwell, accused of stealing almost $54 million from the city, was decked out with "no expense spared." Chicago Tribune Auctioneers scan the crowd for buyers on the second day of the federal auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon on Sept.
21, 2012. Armando L. Sanchez, Chicago Tribune Jeanne Kuhn sits behind the wheel of Rita Crundwell's motor home at the Oak Creek Police Department in Oak Creek.
Wis. Chicago Tribune U.S.
Marshals' tape blocks many doorways on the second day of the federal auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune "Good I Will Be," a horse that sold for $775,000, sits in a trailer on his way to his new home on the second day of the federal auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune The shower floor in Rita Crundwell's home in Dixon is adorned with a horseshoe.
Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Illinois Darryl McPherson, left, and Chief Inspector Jason Wojdylo of the U.
S. Marshals Service Asset Forfeiture Division, watch the second day of the federal auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune A horse trailer parks during a preview of the upcoming live auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon.
The vehicle will be auctioned along with other trailers. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune The bathroom in Rita Crundwell's home is a mix of wood, glass blocks and animal hide. Alex Garcia, Chicago Tribune A multihorse trailer is parked during a preview of the upcoming live auction at the Rita Crundwell ranch in Dixon on Sept.
21, 2014. The vehicle will be auctioned along with other trailers. Crundwell is charged with stealing almost $54 million from the Dixon city coffers.
Alex, Garcia, Chicago Tribune A picture of Rita Crundwell was among hundreds of awards on display at the horse ranch of the former comptroller in Dixon. Stacey Wescott / Chicago Tribune Hundreds of Rita Crundwell's trophies, won in equestrian competitions, sit inside a Rockford warehouse Nov. 16, 2015.
They will be up for auction by the U.S. Marshals Service.
Former Dixon comptroller Rita Crundwell exits the Lee County Courthouse after her arraignment on felony theft charges, Oct. 31, 2012, in Dixon. (John J.
Kim / Chicago Tribune) Longtime comptroller and treasurer for the city of Dixon, Rita Crundwell pleaded guilty in 2012 to stealing almost $54 million over 22 years from her northwestern Illinois city, best known as the boyhood home of former President Ronald Reagan. Authorities at the time called it the largest municipal fraud in the country’s history. Rita Crundwell of Dixon pleaded guilty in 2012 to stealing almost $54 million in public money.
Her lawyer said she wanted to spare taxpayers the expense of a trial. (Chicago Tribune) Crundwell used the money to finance her quarter horse business and lavish lifestyle , according to the FBI. She was released from prison in 2021 with about eight years left on her 19 1/2-year sentence.
Family and friends try to shield the face of Nancy Dobrowski, a longtime village clerk in Burnham, as she leaves the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in 2014.
(Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune) By the time Burnham village Clerk Nancy Dobrowski was done stealing, the tiny working-class town where she had worked for more than three decades was deep in debt. Even after the FBI started questioning her about allegations she was misappropriating funds, she continued the thefts for weeks until agents raided Village Hall in May 2013, forcing her resignation, according to court papers. Prosecutors said Dobrowski was feeding her gambling addiction at Indiana casinos, losing her town’s money one slot machine pull at time.
Dobrowski was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in federal prison in September 2014 for stealing nearly $700,000 from the town over the previous nine years. She had pleaded guilty to wire fraud and filing a false federal income tax return. Country Club Hills Police Chief Regina Evans addresses the media during a news conference in 2009.
(William DeShazer/Chicago Tribune) Country Club Hills police Chief Regina Evans was sentenced in May 2014 to five years in prison for diverting $917,000 from a state job-training grant to help remodel her home, travel to Las Vegas and distribute cash to her family and friends. She pleaded guilty to 16 criminal counts, ranging from theft to laundering as much as about $100,000 through friends to help conceal her crimes. The investigation that led to Evans’ conviction also had taken down Democratic state Rep.
Constance Howard of Chicago; Jeri Wright, the daughter of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and a top state public health official. Charles Flowers in 2007, shortly after being elected superintendent for the Suburban Cook County Regional Office of Education.
(Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune) When Charles Flowers was profiled by the Tribune in November 2007, he said malfeasance in schools shouldn’t be tolerated. But as regional superintendent for the Suburban Cook County Regional Office of Education, which oversaw teacher certifications, local school grants, background checks and fingerprinting for public school teachers and employees in suburban Cook County, Flowers allegedly stole $376,000 in public money from the then-bankrupt office. Among other things, he bloated his payroll by hiring his friends, sister and girlfriend, took out hefty cash advances on an office credit card, dined at swanky restaurants at taxpayers’ expense and bought plane tickets to Mississippi for his children Indicted on 16 counts of official misconduct, theft and misapplication of funds after raids of his home and office, he resigned his position then pleaded guilty in December 2011 to one count of felony theft of public funds.
Flowers was sentenced to 18 months of probation, repaid $16,000 that he stole from the office and permanently lost his teaching and administrative licenses in Illinois. Gov. Pat Quinn signed legislation to eliminate the office in May 2010.
Anthony Fremarek, the former elected supervisor of Plainfield Township, pleaded guilty in 2022 to stealing nearly $1.4 million over a six-year period from a private firm where he was chief financial officer while also holding office. Fremarek resigned from office three months after his indictment in January 2021.
He was sentenced to three years in prison. Former Calumet City Mayor Jerry Genova comments on his sentencing in 2002 at the Dirksen U.S.
Courthouse. (Stephanie Sinclair/Chicago Tribune) A onetime rising political star who was convicted in the summer of 2001 of widespread corruption, Calumet City Mayor Jerry Genova was sentenced to five years in prison in March 2002 by a federal judge who lamented, “You could have been great, but it just didn’t happen.” Under state law, the conviction automatically knocked Genova from office.
Former Calumet City Mayor Jerry Genova, who won a third term despite his indictment on corruption charges, was sentenced in 2002 to five years in prison. (Chicago Tribune) A federal jury found Genova guilty of pocketing about $125,000 in kickbacks from a law firm awarded the city’s legal business and of using what prosecutors called “an army” of city workers to do his political work and house remodeling on city time. He also extorted a Calumet City businessman and tampered with a civil lawsuit.
Former Lyons Village President Kenneth Getty, right, who was convicted of bid-rigging in 1999, stands with his son Christopher in 2009. (Paul Beaty/For the Chicago Tribune) Kenneth Getty was convicted of rigging construction bids in 1996 while he was mayor of Lyons after an FBI raid on village offices. He was sentenced to a prison term of 66 months and blamed his conviction on the alleged incompetence of his trial attorney — and on just about everyone else but himself.
After being released from prison in 2004, Getty told a local newspaper he would seek revenge on the political foes he blamed for the federal investigation into his brief tenure as mayor. Christopher Getty, son of former Lyons Mayor Kenneth Getty, was himself elected mayor in 2009. (Chicago Tribune) In 2009, his son defeated Getty’s former political rival, David Visk, in a three-way race for mayor.
Getty’s son appointed his father in July 2011 to the town’s planning and zoning board — with the town’s attorney telling village trustees no law prevented a convicted felon from serving in that post. John Gliottoni Jr., a construction firm owner, had served on the Chicago Heights council with Louise Marshall and former longtime Chicago Heights Mayor Charles Panici from 1975 to 1991.
In February 1993, all three were convicted of receiving more than $600,000 in bribes and extortion payments from contractors seeking to do or already doing business with the city. Gliottoni was sentenced to five years in prison and also ordered to reimburse the city $1.1 million in illicit bribe profits.
Fox Lake Mayor Richard Hamm and three others were indicted in April 1985 by a federal grand jury in an alleged bribery scheme centering on the awarding of a cable television contract for the village in northwest Lake County. The retiring mayor was also indicted on charges of racketeering for allegedly receiving more than $26,000 in bribes and extortion payments for the granting of liquor licenses, a towing contract, a garbage collection contract, installation of vending machines and approval of a sewer permit. Hamm, who pleaded guilty , became the second consecutive Fox Lake mayor to be convicted on job-related charges (his predecessor Joseph Armondo was the first).
He was sentenced to three years in prison. Former Kane County circuit court Clerk Thomas Hartwell. (Thomas Hartwell photo) Thomas Hartwell was arrested in April 2023 on theft and official misconduct charges after allegedly misusing almost $120,000 in public funds while in office, officials said.
He allegedly, on multiple occasions, misappropriated Kane County funds to Gutierrez Productions Inc. and Dar Illuminations LLC to promote a May 2020 event billed as a personal protective equipment/care package giveaway — but was actually a political event ineligible for county funding. Hartwell was also accused of receiving $15,000 in kickbacks from Robert Gutierrez, president of the companies.
After going missing for 24 hours, Hartwell was found dead in May 2023 at his law office. He had taken his own life. Bobby Jackson, who pleaded guilty to theft and conspiracy charges related to his service for the Dixmoor Park District, is shown in 2015 in Blue Island.
(Gary Middendorf/For the Daily Southtown) Bobby Jackson, a former Dixmoor Park District commissioner accused of being part of a group who stole more than $100,000 in funds, ptaxpayer leaded guilty in June 1998 to theft and conspiracy in exchange for an eight-year prison term. The money that disappeared had been collected as property tax revenue to be used to pay off bonds for the construction of a recreation center that was never built, authorities said. Cook County prosecutors said Jackson spent money on a political campaign and shared the rest with political allies.
Fifteen years after Jackson was released from prison, he was hired as building director for a recreation center in Blue Island. Riverdale Mayor Lawrence Jackson departs Dirksen U.S.
Courthouse after a hearing in November 2023. (Talia Sprague/Chicago Tribune) Riverdale Mayor Lawrence Jackson was indicted in November 2023 on charges he accepted secret funding for his trucking business from a clout-heavy waste hauling firm and then lied about it in a civil deposition. He pleaded not guilty and was released on a recognizance bond.
The indictment came more than a year and a half after the FBI raided Jackson’s home. According to the indictment, Jackson and his wife formed a trucking company, Centennial Holdings, in March 2018 despite knowing nothing about the business and putting up no capital. The company was allegedly run by James and Kelly Bracken, who own Riverdale Materials LLC, which had been granted village approval to open a waste recycling and hauling facility in Riverdale.
The former treasurer of the Posen Park District, Donald Jacobs was sentenced to six years in prison in August 2010 after he admitted diverting about $266,000 from the agency into his personal accounts and using some of the money to pay for personal credit cards and his mortgage, according to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. Jacobs pleaded guilty to one count each of theft of government property and official misconduct. Investigators discovered that Jacobs had written unapproved checks to a company called D & D Services in excess of $200,000 since 2004 and that Jacobs was listed as a signatory to the account where the checks were deposited.
Jacobs was arrested as part of Operation Cookie Jar , an investigation targeting local government corruption the state’s attorney’s office launched earlier in 2010. Valentine Janicki, former vice president of the Metropolitan Sanitary District board and one-time chairman of its finance and purchasing committees, was found guilty in 1977 with four others of taking bribes totaling $1.2 million.
Eight defendants were charged with participating in a scheme of passing and accepting bribes to assure that Ingram Corp. of New Orleans would win a sludge-hauling contract that eventually grossed the conglomerate $46 million. Janicki was sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $80,00 for his part in the scheme.
He suffered a debilitating stroke while in prison before being released in the 1980s. He died in 2000. Roy Jenkins was one of two former Hoffman Estates mayors who pleaded guilty to federal charges of bribery and tax fraud in 1973.
(Chicago Tribune) James R. Thompson, then a U.S.
attorney who would later become Illinois governor, looked to Hoffman Estates for the first indictment in his crackdown on suburban government corruption. Roy Jenkins, Hoffman Estates mayor from 1965 to 1969, was one of six village officials indicted on federal bribery and income-tax charges on Oct. 26, 1973.
All were “paid thousands of dollars” by KB Home — with Jenkins earning about $23,000 — for favorable zoning changes in the development of the Barrington Square complex covering more than 400 acres in Hoffman Estates. Jenkins pleaded guilty to seven counts of bribery and tax evasion. He was sentenced to two years in prison — the longest sentence among the six officials — but released on parole on April 23, 1975.
The former mayor of downstate La Harpe, Ryan Kienast pleaded guilty in 2018 to one count of official misconduct as part of a settlement with prosecutors. Kienast, who was elected mayor in 2015, was charged in 2017 with official misconduct for the unlawful use of public property when he was mayor. He resigned from office in 2017.
Prosecutors alleged Kienast instructed a city employee in 2016 to use a city backhoe for work on his private property. Richard Lewandowski, a Worth Township trustee since 2013 and president of a Pilsen-based printing company that received millions of dollars for printing services from politicians, pleaded guilty in February 2021 to one misdemeanor count of failing to file an income tax return in 2018. In a plea agreement with prosecutors, Lewandowski admitted he did not file an income tax return in either 2017 or 2018, despite earning more than nearly $600,000 in those two years.
In all, he cheated the state and federal government out of about $62,000 in revenue, the plea agreement said. Nick LoBue, the former finance commissioner of Chicago Heights, was sentenced in federal court in July 1991 to 20 months in prison and fined $100,000 for extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars in his city post. LoBue and former South Chicago Heights Mayor Donald Prisco pleaded guilty in April 1991 to extorting about $250,000 beginning in 1980 from a company holding Chicago Heights’ garbage-collection and landfill contracts.
In his plea agreement with the government, LoBue also admitted taking more than $50,000 in bribes from Albert Caesar Tocco, the south suburban mob boss sent to prison, after Tocco took over the city’s garbage-hauling contract in 1984. LoBue admitted in February 1993 that he still collected bribes after he was released on his own recognizance following his arraignment on corruption charges in August 1990, but didn’t want to tell authorities in order to protect his cousin Rod Costello, who made the payoff. LoBue denied he was a member of organized crime and said in federal court that he was unaware that his daughter in college posted a sign on her door announcing “Mafia Princess.
” Springfield School Board member Adam Lopez in Springfield in 2013. (The State Journal-Register) A former school board president in Springfield who ran for Congress, Adam Lopez was sentenced in 2021 to 11 years in prison for theft. Lopez was a former financial agent who defrauded several clients, including family members, of more than $1.
5 million. He pleaded guilty. Lopez, who served on the School District 186 Board of Education, lost a special Democratic primary in 2015 for the 18th Congressional District seat that had been held by Aaron Schock, who resigned amid a federal investigation.
Lopez was released from prison in October 2022. Former Cicero Town President Betty Loren-Maltese at her apartment in Evergreen Park in 2010. (Zbigniew Bzdak/ Chicago Tribune) The flamboyant onetime mayor of Cicero, a town long affiliated with organized crime, Betty Loren-Maltese was convicted along with six others in August 2002 of racketeering conspiracy and fraud in connection with the theft of more than $12 million from town coffers.
The charges came after years of chaos surrounding the leadership of Loren-Maltese, who federal authorities said came to power with the help of people tied to organized crime. Shortly before she took office, authorities said, the mob brought in a firm to handle insurance claims filed through Cicero, a scheme orchestrated in part by her husband and then-Cicero town assessor, Frank Maltese. Betty Loren-Maltese, former Cicero town president, was sentenced to prison in 2003 after her conviction on racketeering conspiracy and fraud charges.
(Chicago Tribune) The firm, Specialty Risk Consultants Inc., soon aided by Loren-Maltese, diverted millions of dollars in health insurance claims to personal projects, including the purchase and restoration of a remote Wisconsin golf course and clubhouse that prosecutors said the mob was planning to convert to a casino. She was sentenced to eight years in prison but served six.
After her release , Loren-Maltese worked at a pizzeria and held a garage sale to help her daughter attend beauty school and to pay back taxes. Dixmoor Mayor Donald Luster leaves the courthouse in 2004 after a jury found him guilty. (Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune) Donald Luster, who was elected mayor of Dixmoor in 2001, was convicted in 2004 of collecting unemployment insurance in 1999 despite earning more than $900 per week.
He also did not file a state income tax return for 1999 or 2000, though W2 income statements show he made more than $80,000 in those years. Luster avoided jail time but was forced from office after his conviction. In March 2019, Luster — then working as an economic development consultant — and five Harvey officials were charged as part of a federal probe into multiple city corruption schemes.
Luster said he could fast-track projects if given bribes, according to an affidavit filed in court for a search warrant. Luster pleaded not guilty . Frank Maltese, center, leaves the Dirksen Federal Building after appearing in court in 1993.
His wife, Cicero Town President Betty Loren-Maltese, is seen wearing sunglasses in the background. (Carl Wagner/Chicago Tribune) While Cicero town assessor, Frank Maltese functioned as a bookmaker and was in a position of public trust to do the mob’s bidding, according to his October 1991 plea agreement. The plea deal also stated Maltese was able to provide advance notice of a police raid on a gambling den and paid out money on winning bets and collected for himself 25 percent of all losing wagers.
But the most serious portion of the agreement referred to a bribery plot in which known mobster Ernest Rocco Infelise allegedly instructed Maltese ”to approach (unnamed) Cook County judges to discuss the payment of bribe money to fix a criminal case.” Amid it all, Maltese remained in office — drawing his full salary of $32,200 a year — while facing a maximum sentence of 5 years behind bars and a fine of up to $250,000. He resigned after his wife, Betty Loren-Maltese, got into the race for town president; Maltese asked the judge to spare him a long prison term due to illness.
Maltese was sentenced in July 1993 to nine months in federal prison and fined $4,000, but he died of pancreatic cancer before he could begin the term. Dino Marino, the son of a convicted mob enforcer, had an ideal job as a Health Department inspector for the town of Cicero in the early 1990s. The extent of his labor, according to federal prosecutors, was to pick up his paycheck — more than $1,900 — every two weeks at Town Hall.
He pleaded guilty to ghost-payrolling charges shortly before his case was scheduled to go to trial. Marino was sentenced in April 2000 to 1 year in prison — at the same Oxford, Wisconsin, facility where his father, Louis, was serving a 28-year prison sentence for a 1992 racketeering conviction — for defrauding the town out of $123,414 in pay and $10,116 in health care benefits. An FBI agent said Louise Marshall, the first Black woman on the Chicago Heights City Council, admitted to him that she accepted $5,000 to $7,000 in payoffs in the 1980s from another council member, Nick LoBue.
But during the trial of former Chicago Heights Mayor Charles Panici, she denied she ever took cash bribes or admitted the payoffs to the federal authorities. After deliberating over parts of three days, a federal jury found Panici, Marshall and former City Council member John Gliottoni Jr. guilty of all counts, including racketeering, racketeering conspiracy and extortion.
Marshall was sentenced to almost 3 1/2 years in prison. Gerard Meyer and five other Hoffman Estates officials were indicted on Oct. 26, 1973, on charges of accepting bribes in exchange for rapid approval of zoning changes that allowed KB Home’s Barrington Square subdivision to be constructed.
Though the four-year village trustee was initially charged with 11 counts of bribery, Meyer pleaded guilty to two — one for filing a false income tax return and the other for conspiracy. Meyer allegedly received a total of $8,334 from the builder’s attorney. Meyer served four months and 18 days of his six-month term in a Terre Haute, Indiana, prison, according to the Daily Herald, and was paroled on June 21, 1974.
Former Stone Park Mayor Robert D. Natale, left, leaves the Dirksen Federal Building with his lawyer, Marvin Bloom, after pleading guilty to racketeering and other corruption charges in 2001. (Bill Hogan/Chicago Tribune) Robert D.
Natale, a former mayor of Stone Park — a small west suburb with a long history of mob influence — was sentenced in January 2002 to one-and-a-half years in prison for pocketing more than $35,000 in bribes from Chicago mobsters to protect illegal gambling and to allow an adult bookstore to open. When he pleaded guilty in August 2001, Natale admitted that as soon as he took office in April 1989, he began collecting $500 a month to protect mob-controlled gambling on video poker machines in taverns in Stone Park. The bribes continued until late 1994, when federal agents caught Natale just moments after he pocketed a $1,000 cash payoff from a mob lieutenant in a Stone Park restaurant.
Howard Noble, a former Hoffman Estates trustee, was indicted on charges of failing to file any income tax returns in 1968 and 1969. Authorities said Noble received about $18,000 in bribery money from KB Home in exchange for favorable zoning changes. Noble pleaded guilty to two of the 14 charges against him.
He was sentenced to one year in prison and served six months before being paroled. Former Chicago Heights Mayor Charles Panici leaves the Dirksen Federal Building in 1992. (Chicago Tribune) In February 1993, former Chicago Heights Mayor Charles Panici and two former City Council members were convicted of receiving more than $600,000 in bribes and extortion payments from contractors seeking to do or already doing business with the city.
In a separate civil matter in June 1992, Panici and four other Chicago Heights officials were found to have violated the Civil Rights Act in connection with an apartment complex they had closed. Panici was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $1.1 million in restitution.
Twenty years later, Panici told the Tribune federal prosecutors and the FBI were out to get him . He later said he wanted to be remembered for improving Chicago Heights and wrote a book, “From Hero to Zero: How the Feds and a Mafia Wannabe Took a Good Man Down.” Harvey Park District President Julius Patterson, left, chats with park district senior advisor Charlexetta Washington after a meeting in 2005.
(Abel Uribe/Chicago Tribune) Julius Patterson, who was Harvey Park District president for six years, admitted in September 2008 he used a Park District credit card to bill the district for personal entertainment, food, travel and clothing. Cook County prosecutors said Patterson sometimes billed automotive work to the district and had parks employees do maintenance work at properties he owned. The fraud cost the district more than $30,000, but commissioners still honored Patterson with plaques in Park District buildings touting his multiple elected offices and love of Harvey.
Patterson pleaded guilty and was placed on one year’s probation and six months’ home confinement, plus being ordered to pay restitution of about $42,000. He died in November 2009. Edward Pinger, mayor of Hoffman Estates from its incorporation in 1959 until 1965 and a zoning board member from 1965 to 1970, pleaded guilty in November 1973 to federal charges of bribery and tax fraud in connection with the development of KB Home’s Barrington Square community in the village.
He was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Dec. 19, 1973, and served eight months in a federal prison on McNeil Island, Washington, before being paroled . Though there were plans to renamed Lakeview Park in Pinger’s honor , that idea was scrubbed after the community’s first mayor was imprisoned.
Lee Poder, the former Arlington Heights treasurer, was sent to prison for 18 months in August 1987 for diverting $136,400 in village funds to himself; he also was ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment. He served one year. The sentencing ended an unusual odyssey that began May 4, 1987, when an FBI agent went to the Arlington Heights Village Hall to question Poder.
He walked out of the building while the agent was speaking to others and disappeared. Former Arlington Heights Treasurer Lee Poder used village funds to illegally trade in government securities, law enforcement sources told the Tribune in 1987. (Chicago Tribune) Poder was captured by Canadian immigration agents a few days later as he crossed the border at Fort Frances, Ontario, with a loaded .
22-caliber revolver, extra ammunition and $41,700 in cash and rare coins. Auditors believe that by buying and selling securities in highly speculative short-term trades, Poder lost nearly $8 million from the village’s police and fire pension funds between 1985 and 1987. Former Crestwood Mayor Louis Presta arrives at the Dirksen U.
S. Courthouse in 2022 for sentencing in a bribery case stemming from the red-light camera investigation. (Jose M.
Osorio/ Chicago Tribune) Crestwood Mayor Louis Presta was sentenced in 2022 to one year in prison for bribery after resigning his position and pleading guilty to taking what he thought was a $5,000 bribe from a red-light camera company executive during an FBI sting. Presta was released from federal prison in late September 2002 because of his declining health. He is claiming hardship as he fights efforts to turn over pension contributions to the government.
Feb. 11, 1993, Southtown Star (Chicago Tribune) South Chicago Heights Mayor Donald Prisco and Nick LoBue, former finance commissioner of Chicago Heights, pleaded guilty in April 1991 to extorting about $300,000 from 1980 to 1988 from Martin Wondaal after Wondaal was awarded garbage-collection and landfill contracts in Chicago Heights. Assistant U.
S. Atty. Chris Gair said Prisco also took a $10,000 bribe to issue a liquor license to a tavern owner, extorted about $5,000 from a woman to operate a flea market in South Chicago Heights and collected at least $3,400 from an insurance agent who was awarded the village employees’ health insurance contract.
Prisco, who was mayor of South Chicago Heights from 1969 to 1989, was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $20,000. He was working as an exterminator as of December 1994. Oakbrook Terrace Mayor Tony Ragucci pleaded guilty in 2022 in a kickback scheme related to red-light cameras.
(City of Oakbrook Terrace) Two years after resigning from office amid revelations of a federal investigation, Oakbrook Terrace Mayor Anthony Ragucci was charged with wire and tax fraud. Prosecutors accused the longtime police officer-turned-mayor of accepting thousands of dollars after the state let Oakbrook Terrace put red-light cameras at a busy, but arguably safe, corner outside a west suburban mall in 2017. Ragucci pleaded guilty in May 2022 to participating in a red-light camera kickback scheme with a businessman and his stepsons that allegedly funneled thousands in cash payments to the mayor in exchange for a lucrative cut of the town’s ticket proceeds.
Clark County Circuit Clerk Kathy Ramsey pleaded guilty in 2016 to official misconduct. Ramsey authorized overtime for her daughter that was never completed. Former Elgin Township Supervisor David Reinert pleaded guilty in 1993 to embezzling more than $550,000 of the township’s money.
(Chicago Tribune) For 18 years, David Reinert used the Elgin Township’s coffers as his own pot of gold, dipping into it when he needed money to support his lifestyle and personal business ventures, which included a sporting goods store. His crimes caught up with him in September 1993, when state and federal prosecutors filed criminal charges against him. Within a matter of days, Reinert pleaded guilty to the embezzlement scheme and to tax violations.
In February 1994, U.S. District Judge Ann Williams doled out the federal sentence: 34 months in prison, $591,400 in restitution and 1,000 hours of community service.
As for the state’s sentence, Circuit Court Judge Melvin Dunn sentenced Reinert to spend six years in prison, concurrent with his federal sentence. He was also ordered to pay $1.5 million in restitution and perform 2,000 hours of community service.
Reinert was released from prison in 1996. For 14 years as a police officer in Stone Park and Northlake, federal prosecutors said, Sapoznik took monthly bribes of $500 from the mob to protect lucrative profits from illegal gambling on video poker machines in bars and restaurants. In February 1998, a federal judge castigated Sapoznik for his “flagrant abuse of power” and sentenced him to seven years and four months in prison.
In pleading guilty , Sapoznik admitted pocketing bribes while police chief in Northlake between 1990 and 1994. Afterward, authorities uncovered evidence that Sapoznik also had regularly taken bribes from the mob as a police lieutenant and later as chief of the Stone Park Police Department between 1980 and 1990. Oakbrook Terrace Mayor Richard Sarallo at a City Hall meeting in 1992.
(Jose M. Osorio/Chicago Tribune) Richard Sarallo, the four-term mayor of Oakbrook Terrace, pleaded guilty in 1994 to tax evasion for failing to report on his 1988 taxes an estimated $5,000 to $8,000 he derived from free tickets to the Indianapolis 500 and a free helicopter ride to the race. Both the tickets and the ride were provided by local businesses.
Former Oakbrook Terrace Mayor Richard Sarallo pleaded guilty to one count of tax evasion in 1994; prosecutors dropped other, more serious charges against him. (Chicago Tribune) But prosecutors dropped more serious charges that Sarallo repeatedly took bribes from developer Robert Krilich to grease the way for Krilich’s ambitious high-rise apartment and office project in the city. In return for Sarallo’s guilty plea to the tax count, the government also agreed not to pursue charges against Sarallo’s son Andrew in connection with a staged golf hole-in-one in which the younger Sarallo won an antique Cadillac valued at $40,000.
Sarallo was sentenced to six months in prison and stripped of his pension . Former Posen Mayor Donald Schupek pleaded guilty in 2019 to embezzling $27,700 that he used to gamble at casinos in Joliet. (Chicago Tribune) The former mayor of Posen, Donald Schupek served three terms in the small south suburban community before losing a reelection bid in 2017.
He was indicted in January 2019 on federal charges he stole money from the village’s checking account. Prosecutors alleged Schupek — who pleaded guilty in June 2019 to embezzling $27,000 — used the ill-gotten gains to gamble on more than 100 occasions at casinos in Joliet, racking up $62,268 in losses. Schupek was found dead in his bedroom in September 2019 after not appearing at his sentencing hearing.
According to the Cook County medical examiner’s office, Schupek overdosed on a combination of pain medication and alcohol. At the time of his death, Schupek had not made restitution to the village. Michelle Sopko, a bookkeeper who embezzled money from the Palos Heights Fire Protection District, arrives for a court date at the Bridgeview courthouse in 2015.
(Gary Middendorf/ For the Daily Southtown) Prosecutors said Michelle Sopko, a part-time bookkeeper at the Palos Heights Fire Protection District, stole money from the fire district via 177 separate transactions over a 30-month period from 2009 through 2012 — paying herself overtime that she didn’t accrue and wasn’t eligible to receive. Assistant State’s Attorney Mike O’Malley said Sopko also created two “ghost” employees, including one who was a former fire district employee, and diverted their salaries to her bank account, with the money going for food, clothing, mortgage payments, home repairs and travel. She pleaded guilty to the embezzlement scheme and was sentenced to eight years in prison in March 2015, under a plea agreement accepted by a Cook County judge during a hearing at the courthouse in Bridgeview.
Her husband, Charles Sopko, a former Oak Forest deputy fire chief, was acquitted in July 2015 of criminal responsibility in connection with his wife’s embezzlement. Village President Donald E. Stephens stands outside the Rosemont village hall, circa 1984.
(George Thompson/Chicago Tribune) Rosemont Village President Donald Stephens was charged twice by federal prosecutors with corruption but was acquitted both times, including on charges he masterminded a series of complex real estate transactions to pocket $87,100 in payoffs. Stephens had also faced charges he used the threat of a land condemnation suit to force a manufacturing firm to sell its factory next to the Allstate Arena (then known as the Rosemont Horizon ) to the village for $1 million. Illinois Atty.
Gen. Lisa Madigan publicly linked Rosemont Village President Donald Stephens to organized crime in 2004. (Chicago Tribune) While he was never convicted, Stephens’ dream of having the Chicago area’s first casino never came to fruition because of alleged organized crime ties.
The Illinois Gaming Board in January 2001 rejected a planned Rosemont casino, concluding top officials with the would-be riverboat had misled the board and some investors had links to mob figures. In March 2004, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan for the first time publicly linked Rosemont and its mayor to the mob . The man who once ran day-to-day operations in Berwyn City Hall was sentenced in November 2006 to two-and-a-half years in prison for attempting to buy an alderman’s vote with a $500 bribe passed in a men’s room moments before a council meeting in 2003.
Samuel “Sonny” Stillo, who was top administrative assistant to then-Berwyn Mayor Thomas Shaughnessy, was also fined $25,000 and advised to undergo alcohol treatment after prison. He pleaded guilty in May 2006 to bribery for offering to pay $1,000 to Ald. Alex Bojovic — who was secretly cooperating with the FBI — to back a certain bidder on the city’s Super Block project, a major revitalization effort along Cermak Road.
Berwyn mayoral assistant Samuel “Sonny” Stillo was arrested by FBI agents and charged with racketeering in 2003. (Chicago Tribune) Stillo, who was fired in February 2004, also admitted he rigged bids to ensure Clifford Josefik won the right to buy a city-owned residence in return for a $5,000 payoff from the developer. Former longtime Melrose Park Mayor C.
August Taddeo leaves the Dirksen Federal Building after pleading guilty to tax fraud charges in 1999. (Chuck Berman/Chicago Tribune) The former longtime mayor of Melrose Park, C. August Taddeo was charged in August 1999 with attempted extortion and income tax evasion; he pleaded guilty a few weeks later.
Taddeo admitted he extorted kickbacks from village attorney Nicholas Spina between 1988 and 1994 in order for Spina to keep his post. Taddeo was sentenced in December 1999 to 27 months in prison, ordered to repay $11,000 and fined an additional $40,000. Janet Thomas, board president of Harvey Elementary School District 152, made a grand entrance at the Stephenson County courthouse on the day of her conviction.
Arriving in a stretch limousine with her was Harvey Mayor Eric Kellogg and an entourage of 10 additional people. Thomas was found guilty in March 2004 of lying about her income in order to secure more financial aid for her son’s college tuition. Thomas defrauded the state of some $11,000 in financial aid from 1998 to 2000 by stating she earned about $20,000 a year versus the $60,000 to $80,000 she actually made as board president and as a teacher at Bloom Township High School, a jury found.
Commissioner Jeffrey Tobolski attends a Cook County board meeting in Chicago in 2020. (Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune) Jeffrey Tobolski, the former Cook County commissioner and McCook mayor, pleaded guilty in September 2020 to conspiring with McCook’s police chief, Mario DePasquale, to extort a restaurant owner who needed permission to host events serving alcohol. Tobolski admitted in a plea agreement that he collected $29,700 in cash from the extortion scheme, which involved The Pub at the Max restaurant that had been part of the McCook Athletic & Exposition Center facility until it closed in 2018 and was replaced with another eatery.
Tobolski stepped down from his dual posts and agreed to work with investigators. Justice Mayor Melvin VanAllen was indicted in 2005 on 32 counts of bankruptcy fraud and illegally structuring cash deposits to evade bank reporting requirements. (Chicago Tribune) A nine-year mayor of Justice, Melvin VanAllen was found guilty by a federal jury in October 2006 of 32 counts of bankruptcy fraud and illegal cash structuring.
VanAllen filed for personal bankruptcy in 2004 to escape $80,000 in credit card debt. Prosecutors convinced the jury that he lied to his bankruptcy attorney and to a bankruptcy trustee when he told them he did not own the home he and his family had lived in since 1986. Prosecutors said he broke the law by illegally structuring about $500,000 in cash transactions related to his auto parts business, Treyzack Trailers.
He was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison. Markham Mayor David Webb Jr. attends a council meeting in 2013.
(Nuccio DiNuzzo/Chicago Tribune) Markham Mayor David Webb Jr. was sentenced in June 2021 to two years in federal prison for taking nearly $300,000 in bribes, including from one developer who left coffee cups stuffed with cash in the mayor’s office. The sentence capped an unusual public corruption case that began when Webb himself went to federal authorities and admitted he was on the take.
Longtime Markham Mayor David Webb Jr. admitted taking bribes from a Markham development company in court testimony in 2019. (Chicago Tribune) His testimony later led to indictments against two contractors and their companies.
In announcing the sentence , which was below the 4 1/2 years requested by prosecutors, the judge acknowledged Webb’s extraordinary cooperation and said he appreciated that the mayor had a significant gambling addiction at the time he was secretly taking money. After deliberating for 90 minutes, a jury found the mayor of Westhaven (now Orland Hills) guilty on two charges of extortion in April 1974. Curtis Whitaker — who often drove around in a squad car with a siren and a shotgun — extorted $2,100 in 1968 and $5,800 in 1970 from village property owner Homer J.
Askounis on a threat of blocking home construction. The federal government began investigating Whitaker’s activities after the Tribune and the Better Government Association in 1972 revealed how Whitaker used his political and police power in the community to enrich himself. In addition to village president, Whitaker was also its acting police chief, fire commissioner and building inspector.
Whitaker resigned in May 1974 and was sentenced to 18 months in a federal penitentiary that June. He served about half that sentence. Interested in exploring the Tribune’s archives further? We’re partnering with Newspapers.
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