By: Matt Rosenberg
Chicago, Cook County and state public officials in Illinois have for decades perpetrated a vast system of inequity that lets public sector corruption flourish. The result is to create a separate and advantaged class which enjoys special privileges, rewards, and favors. This advantaged class of government officeholders and powerful bureaucrats is typically of long tenure. It controls a spoils system often based on favoritism in public contracting, and buttressed by fake populist and racialized appeals to “equity” and “social justice.”
The results for Illinois taxpayers are reprehensible. A May 2022 report from the University of Illinois-Chicago summarized conviction and indictments from 1976 to 2020, and noted that the Northern District of Illinois, including Chicago and Cook County, remains the most corrupt metro region nationally. The report’s lead author, UIC political scientist Dick Simpson, said, “The sheer number and political stature of the Illinois elected officials and business leaders who were implicated, indicted or convicted in 2020 is staggering.”
Though suspended in political purgatory, corruption and structural governance remedies matter, and we will examine key measures here another time. For now, though, recent developments push the question eternal once more to the fore. How much longer will Illinois and especially Cook County taxpayers accept public thievery as part of the due course of things?
Start with education, supposedly a sacred space of righteous commitment by noble public servants only interested in “the children.”
Events too often torpedo that narrative. Another Chicago Public Schools official has copped to corruption. Former Brennemann Elementary School Principal Sarah Jackson Abedelal pleaded guilty in late June to a federal wire fraud charge and admitted she had asked teachers to submit fake overtime pay claims. Prosecutors alleged these were converted for her personal use and that in a separate but related scheme she also received iPhones, iPads and gift cards from a CPS vendor that were masked by false purchase orders and invoices.
Abedelal is cooperating with federal prosecutors in hopes of shaving time off her possible three- to five-year sentence. Two other school officials are charged but have pleaded not guilty, and a clerk and vendor at another school are also charged in similar cases. Feds say the scams ran from 2012 to 2019.
During part of that stretch, then-CPS CEO Barbara Byrd Bennett earned a four-and-a-half year sentence on federal corruption charges for steering more than $20 million in CPS contracts to a favored educational services consultant in return for special favors. In a plea deal with the feds she admitted she steered the contracts in return for personal gifts, the creation of special funded accounts for two of her relatives, and promises of future employment and a signing bonus for her at the consulting firm after she left CPS.
Abdelal’s recent guilty plea again underscores that at CPS the fish rotted from the head down.
If CPS can put self-dealing of school system insiders to rest, perhaps it can focus more closely on its declining enrollment, anemic levels of core subject mastery for black students, and skyrocketing per-pupil spending.
But don’t bet on it.
Other public education systems operating within Cook County have been rife with corruption charges resulting in guilty pleas or convictions.
Former Chicago City Colleges Vice-Chancellor Sharod Gordon pled guilty to federal fraud charges in June 2021, as seven months earlier so had a City Colleges cohort charged along with Gordon. Gordon had been indicted in a scheme which allegedly netted eight people about $350,000 kicked back from City Colleges contract awards to phony vendor firms. At his Twitter page, Gordon called himself a “social justice advocate and one who works for the Greater Good of the Greatest Number of People.”
One more example of corruption in public education came in May of 2022 with the year-long federal prison sentence handed down to a former Chicago State University College of Pharmacy Dean named Carmita Coleman.
She was sentenced for embezzling $650,000 from a student organization which was supposed to be advancing racial diversity in the pharmacy industry. The sentencing announcement from the Northern Illinois District of the U.S. Attorney’s Office stated Colman ran the scheme from 2011 to 2016 and used the embezzled funds for personal purposes including payment for a Caribbean trip.
The sentencing announcement notes Colman “attempted to cover up the fraud by submitting false and misleading reports that concealed the withdrawals. When a new individual was appointed to replace Coleman as Executive Director, Coleman knowingly delayed turning over access to the organization’s bank accounts so that she could continue spending the money for her personal benefit.”
The federal indictment of Coleman makes clear how a “diversity” scam can be used by a corrupt public servant for personal enrichment.
As an instructor and interim pharmacy college dean at Chicago State, she was appointed by a national pharmacy industry association to head the student association meant to advance the “health, education, and social environment in minority communities” and support industry diversity initiatives.
The group was funded by student and chapter fees and donations from corporations which – based on the obviously scant oversight of – appear to have been more interested in the appearance of advocacy for minority communities and pharmacists than in the genuine article itself.
Recently it hasn’t just been public education officials who’ve been ensnared in self-dealing. The slow but steady parade of Illinois state legislators convicted on corruption charges has also continued.
In May 2022, former Illinois State Representative Luis Arroyo was sentenced to almost five years on a federal wire fraud charge tied to a bribery conviction. As a state lawmaker he was also a lobbyist and the sentencing announcement from federal prosecutors says he “accepted thousands of dollars in bribes from the gaming company, Collage LLC, in the form of checks made payable to” the lobbying firm for whom he worked. “In exchange for those bribes, Arroyo promoted legislation in the Illinois House of Representatives related to the sweepstakes industry and advised other state lawmakers to support the legislation.”
In June, former Illinois State Senator Thomas E. Cullerton was sentenced to a year on a federal embezzlement charge for fraudulently receiving almost $250,000 in salary, bonuses and benefits from the Illinois labor organization Teamsters Joint Council 25. The funds were for a largely no-show job. Cullerton admitted to spending the money for personal uses including a mortgage, utility bills, and groceries.
Another government jurisdiction that has been rife with corruption is Cook County.
Last week the ex-CEO of a Pennsylvania debt-collection firm was sentenced to three months on federal charges for making illegal payments on behalf of then-Clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown to help cover costs of a 2014 Women’s History Month special event sponsored by Brown’s office.
The then-CEO paid almost $2,000 for plaques and catering for the Women’s History Month event and then told company workers and lobbyists in an email that along with these expenses already paid by the company for the Clerk’s event, their attendance would help the company “stay ahead” of a competing vendor splitting the work with their firm. Brown was never indicted in connection with this or any other scheme and retired from the post in 2020.
The amount the vendor firm’s chief paid was admittedly small and there is no proof Brown’s office ever suggested he needed to do so. But that he believed it was necessary to “pay to play” is likely revealing. His mistake was putting that belief in writing
But a top aide to Brown named Beena Patel was convicted for perjury to a grand jury. She’d sought to block a federal bribes-for-jobs corruption probe of the Clerk’s office with false testimony. She was sentenced in 2019 to two years in prison. At least she lost her $7,300 monthly government pension.
Another Brown-era circuit court clerk’s staffer named Sivasubramani Rajaram was convicted in 2017 for lying to a federal grand jury in connection with the same cover-up scheme involving Patel.
Rajaram later admitted that in return for being awarded a job in Brown’s office, he paid $15,000 disguised as a business loan to a goat meat supply firm called Goat Masters Corp. It was co-owned by Brown and her husband.
In another Cook County corruption case, a Forest Preserve District employee took a $10,000 bribe to steer a contract. He was sentenced to a year in prison.
There’s still more. Eugene Mullins was director of the county’s department of public affairs and communications, under then-Cook County Board President Todd Stroger. Mullins was convicted for multiple counts wire fraud and accepting kickbacks. He took his cut from contract awards steered to preferred vendors for disaster services, energy services and Census work. He was sentenced to four years.
Another top Stroger aide earned $120,000 as his deputy chief of staff in Cook County but that wasn’t enough. Carla Oglesby was sentenced to six-and-a-half years for theft of more than $300,000 and money laundering.
Assistant State’s Attorney Robert Podlasek put a fine point on the inequity of Oglesby’s actions.
He described to a judge how in just 56 days at work, Oglesby ginned up 13 small, phony contract awards – each just below the $25,000 threshold that triggered outside review. The private enrichment scheme sent $325,000 to her own company and to her friends.
Podlasek called it a “rape of Cook County.” He added, “worst of all, she did it in a county where poverty and crime are, sadly, pervasive.”
A program manager named Barry Croall in Cook County’s Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management was convicted for embezzlement after he arranged to take $330,000 in kickbacks from inflated contracts issued to flood mitigation service providers. He bought a condo – and paid credit card debt and mortgages for his own private company – with money embezzled from taxpayers. Call that one “home equity.”
Again and again, we see corruption in public contracting. Real “equity” would suggest better safeguards to protect taxpayers. But no such luck.
The weary, world-wise resignation and jokery about Illinois corruption, to which so many here revert in defense of the indefensible, helps to ensure the problem’s perpetuation.
As does a misguided belief by some they’ll somehow “get theirs” because after all, “their people” – usually a race-based construct – are at the helm of government.
Voters, remember. Unless you’re one of the favored few, you’re an outsider, not an insider. Nobody “sent” you into the secret sanctum.
H.L. Mencken put it best: “democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
Apologists for endemic corruption in Northern Illinois, including laissez-faire voters, journalists and business leaders, are getting played. Politicians will never take decisive action if constituents don’t muster sufficient outrage and make structural change.
If this is “government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” a nettling question arises. Exactly what sort of people are we? Ostrich-people?
Read more from Wirepoints:
- Illinois economy, jobs suffer under potential presidential candidate J.B. Pritzker
- Gov. Pritzker is still proclaiming Illinois a Covid “disaster area.” How does he do it with a straight face?
- Four things you need to know about mass shootings and the new gun control landscape
- New State of Illinois Financial Statements Show $4.5 Billion Loss For FY 2021, Repudiating ‘Balanced Budget’ Claims
- In a city this violent, Mayor Lightfoot’s outburst against Justice Thomas constitutes a grave dereliction of duty
- Electricity cost rising 50% in much of Illinois and risk of brownouts looms
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Excellent report, and probably an eye-opener for some. Surprised though that the report doesn’t mention the number of Illinois governors who have gone to prison. Nor does it mention Mike Madigan, (currently indicted on federal racketeering charges) who virtually owned Illinois politics for 40 some years, profiting from his law firms revenue from legal fees representing developers, that had to get government approval for building variance and tax breaks (can you say “conflict of interest”. Of course Cullerton (Madigan’s #2) was in that same business. Then of course there is the vast scam of Illinois elected officials giving fat contracts… Read more »
Thanks, Matt – You column speaks to the frustration that so many of us can’t express in an open forum.
A continuing theme of Matt Rosenberg’s articles is, “How did things get so out of control and what can be done to remedy them?” Each successive missive identifies and addresses the underlying issues, their genesis, and who benefits from their existence. For nearly two decades I searched for the economic term that codified “soft corruption” and found that it dovetailed with “hard corruption”. “Rent Seeking” is the term and concept that I ultimately discovered that defined this phenomenon. By manipulating the levers of government and those that control the purse strings, soft corruption goes by unabated simply because the perceived… Read more »
My experience here in California as a working politician (won my US House of Representatives from CD-13 Republican nomination race in 2010) is that the State Republican Party in those venues that are abandoned to the Democrats allow those people to put up absolutely anyone they want. Without regard for qualifications or the ability to serve. In Chicago it is far worse insofar as the Mafia has dominated politics there since Prohibition. People need to be reliably dirty as well as predictably incompetent. Or it makes the Outfit nervous. Whole lot of drugs move through Chicago as the major North… Read more »
Excellent article Matt. I hope the entire state of Illinois gets to read it maybe they will vote better.
Excellent article. The question always remains…what to do? Change the Illinois constitution. Bankrupt the state. Reform pensions. Close the Department of Education and give parents vouchers to choose the school they want to send their children.
Crook County
Excellent take and take down by the author. As I read the first example about the CPS principal, Barbara Byrd Bennett popped in my head. The author then shed light on her corrupt practices. Bennett’s particular tenure, under the previous admin, also provides the example of how ravenous these diversity hires can harm their own communities, in whose name they justify their theft. Bennet’s primary mission included the largest divestment in education facilities, including school meals and warm winter buildings in the poorest minority areas of the city. Ever. Bennett became the corruption case brand favorite capitalized on by the… Read more »
You leave little to be said Matt. It’s been corrupt to the core since Grandpa’s first Cigar Stand. That’s more than a Friggin Century. IMHO, there’s no hope of changing the sickeningly corrupt system. These multi-generational fraudsters and thieves have woven themselves into the system, the very fabric of Chicago. It’s Wimbledon Season…..
Game, Set, Match !
It used to be the Garbage Haulers, the Linen Companies, Vending Machines, Hat check, concession car hikers and Linen Services. Kefauver did away with them, only to allow the real crooks to take over.
Mike Royko used to say Chicago aldermen and other government officials should not get a paid salary. Instead the offices should be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Watch The Great McGinty! It perfectly depicts machine politics. Akim Tamiroff plays the guy behind the curtain. He explains to Brian Donlevy how he’s the leader of both apposing political partys so the election is irrelevant. Whoever wins he retains power. Ya think I’m going to unemployed by the whims of the voters!
As my sage-like younger brother once quipped,”Illinois is much like a Half-way house in reverse. From the Governor’s Mansion right down the line. They start in supposed greatness only to finally have their forwarding address in Joliet!” There seems to not be a single office holder able or willing to hold fast and true to their Oath of Office when once they take hold. From the mighty Governor Walker (which is where my notice started, but I understand Kerner was a scoundrel too.), all the way down to Aldermen and police officials. I am waiting to hear that the dog… Read more »
My Grandfather, who built forty odd restaurants around the city during the 30’s, 40’s & 50’s, would simply say “it’s the price of doing Business in Chicago”. Here we are many decades later and only the names have changed. Truth be told, would you accept any of these imbecilic jobs that the city has to offer …. for $50k, 60k or $70k ?
Some Schmuck has got to pretend to do the job we’d have nothing to do with ….
It is not just Illinois. I have seen the same thing go on at the Federal level. There the monetary stakes are hugely higher.
This is mind-boggling. We’re a joke on the national scale, regularly in comedy monologues. It’s like a feeding frenzy for the corrupt. But for whatever reason, we can’t seem to stop it. Even when a Federal Inspector is put in place that doesn’t seem to do anything. And it’s not like it’s been a short time. On the contrary, it’s been decades. The “laundry list” could go on and on and on. I remember when John Kass had a “scandal counter” while Daley was mayor. The “counter” got close to 200 scandals and then for whatever reason, he quit counting.… Read more »
Comprehensive overview of political corruption in Illinois. Sadly makes suspect the old adage there’s always a few bad apples is reveresed with regards to politicians. At least Illinois, an honest servant of the people appears to be the exception rather than the rule.
Of the people by the people for the people. What kind of people are we? We are now a people of they will tell you what think, so sit down and shut up. If one isn’t willing to do so, or question it you will be called names. At one time these names were offensive and were bad. Now it’s a daily occurrence. We have a mayor who thinks she has a big one. She also is proficient in the f bomb. I knew some of this corruption but not the extent you pointed out here. One need to only… Read more »
Thank you for the information, Matt, as depressing as it is. It’s disgraceful that this sort of thing is so commonplace. I thought NY was corrupt until I moved to NJ. Now I think Illinois could give NJ a run for its (ill-gained) money.
This game is way past “getting old”. Just as people used to joke about Chicago’s reputation for violence of the Al Capone days, “Chicago…BANG BANG!”, violence in Chicago has skyrocketed recently and it is unsustainable. Real people are dying. Anyone laughing? Then there’s the “ha ha ha dead people voting in Illinois” joke, as if voter fraud is somehow funny when every illegal vote cancels out every legal vote. Elections have consequences. Anyone laughing at the shootings, car jackings, robberies and murders in Chicago, gas prices and inflation? And then there’s always corruption which is the cornerstone of every blue… Read more »
Chicago primary voters are mostly progressives – only 20% turnout this past election. Then between 50%-60% of the registered voting population shows up on election in Nov (or April for municipal elections) and votes straight ticket Democrat, for the very same Democrats the progressives chose for them a few months earlier in the primary. Sure there are ways to fix this problem but it’s nearly insurmountable because most voters seem to be happy with Democrat leaders. On the one hand, these voters are correct: it doesn’t really matter who you vote for because government is not the savior and cannot… Read more »
Can we add the Assistant deputy vice supervisor- at some small community park district, that “ retired” with a 200K pension? No one specific, just a regular thing here in The County of Crooks.
And yet, when we go to the polls in November, for the most part- we will be offered the same ol’ same ol’. By design. Talk about voter suppression- the rest of the country got nothing on Illini!
We’ve become complacent peoples, because we’ve been twisted, turned and lied to for decades and it’s become an every day habit in governing….
Sadly, the corruption runs quite deep. Some years ago, yours truly was invited to audit a college class on “influencing the system.” One of the classes included a presentation on how politics really work in Chicago and Illinois. Without going into the details, a local political party wished to run a candidate for a congressional seat. They came up with a candidate, but there was a problem. The problem was this person was a beautiful young lady, and an attorney, and these folks wanted, or rather needed, to get “permission” to run this candidate against a very powerful incumbent. Why… Read more »
Matt, excellent reminder story about who did what and who got caught. They all got the money and a little time. They’ll be on the public dole again plotting their next scan. They have no internal moral compass. After your time at the Mirage, what’s changed in Cook County? Nothing! Politicans don’t care because the voters don’t care and when they vote they vote for who the Precinct and gang boss tell them to. Corruption has always been here and will always be here. So, write all you want. The scammers keep you writing but nothing is written on stopping.… Read more »
Every time I read of such corruption I feel abused. This list leaves me feeling destroyed.
Tear it all down and start over. Chicago will continue to elect democrats, and none of them are talking about corruption. It’s just assumed it’ll always be a part of “our system.”
Thanks for the info, Matt.
Some of these politicians and administrators at public universities have been abusing their power and access to funds for years and years. I think the Chicago-Northern Illinois people are numb to the abuse. However, that is not the way to take it. We need to weed out corruption. We also have Governor Pritzker under federal investigation for the $331,000 in tax breaks he took on his gold coast mansion. On a lesser note, former Illinois State Senator Terry Link was under federal investigation for bribery and decided to wear a wire for the FBI—-and he pleaded guilty to Federal Income… Read more »
Hate to say it, but at least for the time being…it shall ever be thus. Dan Walker. Paul Powell and the shoeboxes. George Ryan. Remember the ‘Fast’ Eddie’ Vrdolyak days?
It ’tis a litany, no doubt. And when REAL reform is in the air–not the fake BS reform that Lightfoot campaigned on–it is counterproductive on so many levels. You just wonder over the years…how many well-meaning grassroots folks in the less-affluent areas really wanted to make a difference by change, but were thwarted at every strata by corruption, with the inevitable question, ‘..what’s in it for moi?’
I lost faith in state and federal level politics when I worked with a few campaign wranglers over 15 years ago. I was never more than a fly on the wall as my job was to photograph their candidates for ads and other election related things. One of the things I became aware of was when SBC wanted to buy Ameritech, the Citizens Utility Board as well as many other organizations were all telling “our” representatives in Springfield to not allow it but SBC lobbyists were scattering bushels of money around so the deal went through. One of the first… Read more »
I agree that the lack of an independent watchdog in the media handicaps ANY effort to expose corruption. In addition, it’s extremely expensive to get someone elected so the common man can’t afford to run for office so he/she can make changes. Last, even if an honest man does get elected he/she will more than likely get outvoted or shouted down by the corrupt majority. It’s not impossible to make the changes, but it sure is easier and less expensive to move to a state that is less corrupt (which is probably any of the 47 states below Illinois in… Read more »
What happened to investigating reporters? Sadly, Our state lacks the number of journalist with moral courage to investigate these people. It’s time to clean house and return power to the great legal citizens of Illinois.
The local Chicago news is a complete joke.
I’m not sure it’s the reporters. It’s the editors, publishers, and paper owners that don’t want to rock the boat or have been bought themselves, like the owners of the Sun Times.
We have two problems: 1) Those who are elected are the least qualified for the job. 2) The “presstocricy” that continually distracts from #1 above. Politicians are universally narcissistic, self-serving, ego-maniacal pigs. Those traits enable them to get elected. They are irrelevant to getting their work done. As Matt Rosenberg has pointed out, many of these shills start their corruption in motion within days of taking office. You only need look at Illinois politicians today to confirm this. Regarding the piggishness of pols, I once had an encounter will Chicago alderman Ed Burke. He is 100 percent pure nasty. The… Read more »
Years ago Eddie Burke was criticized for his hand in some retirement home by a TV commentor. As this was being transmitted, my brother wrote a nasty letter to this clown calling him a moral degenerate. Two days later an angry Eddie was on TV making reference to this letter referring to him as “moral degenerate”. At least someone tweaked his nose!
Burke is truly very nasty.
There is a solution: it involves individual effort and learning a new skill, but can be lucrative for practitioners:
bounty rewards for documentation of actionable malfeasance by public officials, followed by appropriate civil litigation (such as taxpayer objection lawsuits).
The corruption of the politicians will continue because it accurately reflects the desires of a majority of Illinois citizens who want the gravy train to stop at their houses. They want in on the scams.
There’s a book called “When Corruption Was King” written a corrupt mob attorney, Robert Cooley, who gives a really good look at the inside of the political world. He became an informant for the FBI and was responsible by his actions for sending dozens of politicians, judges, lawyers and an assortment of other corrupt officials to prison. Interesting reading if one likes to follow Chicago/Cook County affairs. Operation GamBat along with Operation Graylord should have been a warning to thieves in government, it apparently wasn’t.
That’s The best book on Chicago corruption. When the FBI removed Robert Cooley from being undercover for fear of him getting killed, Cooley’s one regret was not nailing Ed Burke for his corruption. This was decades ago. Never forget that corrupt Ed Burke’s wife is the Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.
I thought I kept pretty good track of all the convictions, but Matt is presenting all the lower level convictions of less known offenders. This article should be run on the front page of the Trib, Sun Times, Daily Herald and Facebook every day for a week. Would the voters catch on? How much other smaller corruption is going on that prosecutors can’t bother with?