Speak no evil

The following Chicago Tribune story describes an almost daily routine for Chicago politicians, granting favors in return for bribes:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-developer-corruption-carothers-19-20100318,0,7896465.story

The story itself is as old as the incorporation of Chicago. An alderman accepts a bribe to rezone property for a developer. This process of aldermanic enrichment is written into the City of Chicago zoning laws. All zoning changes must first be approved by the alderman before it can be considered by the rest of the zoning governing boards.

 

Why should we examine this particular case of a developer who bribed an alderman? I find the details of this trial fascinating. In this trial the developer Calvin Boender was convicted of paying Alderman Isaac "Ike" Carothers a $38,000.00 bribe. Alderman Carothers has already been separately tried and convicted for accepting this bribe. The interesting part of the Boender trial is that the federal prosecutors did not call Alderman Carothers to testify against Calvin Boender. The following is a quote from the news article:

 

• Carothers pleaded guilty to corruption charges last month and resigned as 29th Ward alderman. He has been cooperating with the FBI's investigation for months, working undercover at times. In a surprise, prosecutors decided not to call him as a witness at the trial.

 

Why would the prosecutors choose not to have their star witness testify? The Tribune offers this as an answer:

 

• Veteran lawyers said the decision not to put Carothers on the witness stand may have been a signal that prosecutors were concerned about his credibility, the baggage he brought or what he might say on the stand.

 

In my opinion the concern was not about the alderman’s credibility or any baggage that he would bring. The prosecutors could not allow Alderman Carothers to testify because of what he might say. The following paragraphs from the Tribune story contain the smoldering embers of testimony that could ignite a political firestorm:

 

• In 2008 the Tribune chronicled how Boender eventually got his way on Galewood Yards after enlisting the support of Carothers and U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill. Gutierrez, who had just received a $200,000 loan from Boender for his own real estate investments, personally lobbied Mayor Richard Daley. The congressman has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

• Daley's and Gutierrez's names came up during the trial when a former city planning commissioner testified about a meeting involving the two and Boender in 2004-05 at which Boender brought a model of his 50-acre project.

• The Tribune reported this week that FBI agents and other federal authorities had secretly interviewed Daley in 2008 at a downtown hotel about the politicians who supported the Galewood Yards project. Daley had no comment Thursday on Boender's conviction.

 

My conclusion is that Alderman Carothers was not called to testify because he has first hand evidence of malfeasance by U.S. Representative Luis Gutierrez and possibly by Mayor Daley himself. The question that we now must answer is this:

 

Is the U.S. Attorney’s office holding back on indictment of Gutierrez and possibly Daley because their investigation is ongoing and these indictments will occur at sometime in the future, or have they been called off by someone higher up in Washington?