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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (283832)	4/11/2006 2:14:51 PM
From: paret	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1576167

Crooked Democrats again Feds: Files destroyed in hiring probe - "Deny everything -- deny, deny, deny." Chicago Sun-Times ^ \| April 11, 2006 \| STEVE WARMBIR, NATASHA KORECKI AND TIM NOVAK The mayor's patronage chief secretly ordered city computer files destroyed and agreed to have his own computer demolished within days after an FBI agent interviewed him about city hiring practices in the Water Department, prosecutors alleged Monday. The revelation came as federal prosecutors filed court papers Monday giving the greatest detail yet in their case against the patronage chief, Robert Sorich, and three other former city employees who allegedly schemed to rig the city hiring process to reward political workers with jobs or promotions. The destruction of the computer files happened in 1997 during a separate investigation of City of Chicago corruption called Operation Silver Shovel, but prosecutors used it as an example to illustrate how city employees allegedly covered up illegal hiring practices. 'Deny everything' Prosecutors also revealed in the 93-page filing, called a Santiago proffer, that at one point Sorich's secretary had more 5,700 entries on a city laptop computer related to "political employment requests." In another new detail, the personnel director in the city's Sewer Department got this piece of advice from her predecessor on how Sorich's office controlled the hiring process: "Deny everything -- deny, deny, deny." Prosecutors reveal for the first time the behind-the-scenes pressure exerted by a carpenters union official to hire his 19-year-old son as a city building inspector. The inspector was fired after the Sun-Times revealed in 2004 that the young man was not qualified for the job. The union official and Sorich's office had pressured city officials to hire the young man, prosecutors allege. Sorich was a top official in the mayor's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, or IGA. Also charged is Tim McCarthy, Sorich's right-hand man in the office, as well as Patrick Slattery and John Sullivan, high-ranking officials at Streets and Sanitation, who allegedly oversaw the rigged hiring process there. The four men are going to trial May 10. Sorich's attorney, Thomas Durkin, mocked the government's case on Monday: "If it takes them over 90 pages to present a simple Santiago proffer, it ought to be fun watching them present the same stupid theory to a jury." Patrick Blegen, the attorney for Slattery, said the proffer "still hasn't changed my mind; we're still very much looking forward to going to trial." The attorneys for the two other men could not be reached. Prosecutors describe a thoroughly corrupted city hiring system, where jobs went to political workers who did the bidding of the mayor's governmental affairs office, not the most qualified applicant. Prosecutors got a front-row seat on the system thanks in part to several city agency personnel directors who have cooperated with authorities under grants of immunity. The system pitted high-ranking city employees leading their own political armies against union officials against other clout players all trying to get the mayor's IGA office to give their people city jobs. Once, Donald Tomczak, who ran the city's Water Department -- as well as his own political army -- told Victor Reyes, who headed the mayor's IGA office, that getting a city promotion for one of his political soldiers was critical, saying, "This one's really important to me." "Don," Reyes allegedly replied, "I've got eight other guys, saying, 'this one's really important,'" according to the filing. Filing suggests IGA got inside info Tomczak has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors. Reyes, who ran the mayor's Hispanic Democratic Organization, has not been charged. Reyes' attorney has denied his client did anything wrong. For the first time, prosecutors suggest Reyes was able to help a former city employee, who was also a political operative, land a CTA job after the worker was forced to quit his city job after allegedly doing political work on city time. The filing also suggests that the IGA office had inside knowledge of the internal city investigation of the worker.