Former Chicago Ald. Ed Burke was convicted by a federal jury Thursday of racketeering conspiracy and a dozen other counts for using the clout of his elected office to win private law business from developers.
The guilty verdict on the marquee charge of the indictment capped a stunning fall for Burke, the former head of the city Finance Committee and Democratic political machine master who served a record 54 years in the City Council before stepping down in May.
That means 38 Chicago aldermen have pleaded guilty or been convicted of crimes related to official duties since 1972. Three aldermen died while awaiting trial, while charges are pending against two others. Only one, Ray Frias, was acquitted.
Facing charges
Daniel Solis (25th ward)
Charged 2022
The former Chicago alderman, who turned government mole to help federal investigators build cases against Ald. Edward Burke and ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan, was charged with a bribery count 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 has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office, which has agreed to drop bribery charges against him in three years if he continues to cooperate.
Carrie Austin (34th ward)
Pleaded not guilty 2021
Austin and her top aide were indicted in June 2021 on charges they shepherded a new real estate development through the City Hall approval process beginning in 2016 and were given home improvement perks from a developer seeking to influence them. They have pleaded not guilty. Lawyers for Austin, who already announced she wouldn’t run for reelection, said in a court filing in November 2022 she is medically unfit for trial and would retire from the City Council on March 1, 2023, a week after the City Council election.
Pleaded guilty or convicted on charges related to aldermanic duties
Edward Burke (14th ward)
Convicted 2023
After his office was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Nov. 29, 2018, federal prosecutors charged Burke in January 2019 with attempted extortion. A 14-count indictment on May 30, 2019, expanded the corruption allegations against the 75-year-old, accusing him of abusing his City Hall clout to extort private legal work from companies and individuals doing business with the city. In his 50 years in politics, the 75-year-old Southwest Side alderman had been under federal scrutiny several times before, but never previously convicted or indicted. In addition to racketeering, Burke was also charged with federal program bribery, attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion and using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity. He was acquitted on one count of conspiracy to commit extortion related to the redevelopment of a Burger King.
Burke was convicted by a federal jury in December 2023 of racketeering conspiracy and a dozen other counts for using the clout of his elected office to win private law business from developers. The guilty verdict on the marquee charge of the indictment capped a stunning fall for Burke, the former head of the city Finance Committee and Democratic political machine master who served a record 54 years in the City Council before stepping down in May 2023.
Willie Cochran (20th ward)
Pleaded guilty 2019
Cochran was sentenced to one year in prison by U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso on June 24, 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 supports on deals in his 20th Ward, after he pleaded guilty in March 2019. A former Chicago police officer elected to the City Council in 2007, Cochran was indicted in December 2016 on an array of charges, including extortion and bribery.
Isaac “Ike” Carothers (29th ward)
Pleaded guilty 2010
To bribery and tax charges in a zoning case. His alderman father, William, was convicted 27 years earlier.
Arenda Troutman (20th ward)
Pleaded guilty 2008
To fraud after admitting she solicited donations from developers seeking to do business.
Percy Giles (37th ward)
Convicted 1999
Pocketing $10,000 in bribes from a government mole and extorting an additional $81,200.
Virgil Jones (15th ward)
Pocketing two payoffs totaling $7,000.
Lawrence Bloom (5th ward)
Pleaded guilty 1998
To filing a false income tax return and admitted pocketing $14,000 from an FBI mole.
John Madrzyk (13th ward)
Convicted 1998
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.
Jesse Evans (21st ward)
Sentenced 1997
Accepting $7,300 in bribes, extorting $10,000 and a new basement floor.
Joseph Martinez (31st ward)
Convicted 1997
Accepting pay for three no-work, ghost-payroll jobs at City Hall.
Allan Streeter (17th ward)
Pleaded guilty 1996
To taking $37,020 in bribes from a government mole and an undercover FBI agent.
Ambrosio Medrano (25th ward)
Pleaded guilty 1996
To taking $31,000 from a mole and placing two associates in no-work jobs on a city committee. Medrano was found guilty in 2013 in a separate corruption scheme.
Fred Roti (1st ward)
Convicted 1993
Taking $10,000 to influence a court case and $7,500 to support a ward zoning change.
Marian Humes (8th ward)
Pleaded guilty 1989
To taking $6,000 from Hutchinson to help contractors and $5,000 from an FBI mole.
Perry Hutchinson (9th ward)
Convicted 1988
In an insurance-fraud scheme. Then, in 1989, he pleaded guilty to taking $42,200 from an FBI mole.
Chester Kuta (31st ward)
Pleaded guilty 1987
To income tax evasion, fraud and civil rights violation.
Wallace Davis Jr. (27th ward)
Convicted 1987
Accepting a $5,000 bribe, forcing his niece to pay $11,000 in kickbacks and extorting $3,000.
Clifford Kelley (20th ward)
Pleaded guilty 1987
To charges that he accepted $36,500 for lucrative city work.
Louis Farina (36th ward)
Convicted 1983
Conspiring to extort $7,000 from contractors to help them obtain city building permits.
Tyrone Kenner (3rd ward)
Convicted 1983
Accepting $15,500 to help more than a dozen people become sheriff’s deputies or electricians.
William Carothers (28th ward)
Convicted 1983
Extorting as much as $32,500 from Bethany Hospital builders to remodel his ward office.
Stanley Zydlo (26th ward)
Pleaded guilty 1980
Paying $1,000 to alter two relatives’ test results for a Fire Department physical entrance exam.
Edward Scholl (41st ward)
Pleaded guilty 1975
Taking $6,850 in bribes from a contractor to permit zoning changes in his ward.
Donald Swinarski (12th ward)
Pleaded guilty 1975
Accepting $7,800 in three bribes to approve zoning changes in his ward.
Paul Wigoda (49th ward)
Convicted 1974
Taking a $50,000 bribe in exchange for his support for a zoning change in a nearby ward.
Thomas Keane (31st ward)
Convicted 1974
Fraud and conspiracy for aiding a scheme to buy and sell tax-delinquent property at inflated prices.
Frank Kuta (23rd ward)
Convicted 1974
Accepting a $1,500 bribe on a zoning case (Preceded Potempa).
Joseph Potempa (23rd ward)
Pleaded guilty 1973
Accepting $3,000 for zoning changes and failing to report $9,000 on income tax returns.
Casimir Staszcuk (13th ward)
Convicted 1973
Accepting three bribes totaling $9,000 to back zoning changes.
Joseph Jambrone (28th ward)
Convicted 1973
Accepting payoffs of $4,000 and $1,000 to support zoning changes.
Fred Hubbard (2nd ward)
Pleaded guilty 1972
Embezzling nearly $100,000 from a federally funded jobs program.
Pleaded guilty or convicted on charges not related to aldermanic duties
Patrick Daley Thompson (11th ward)
Convicted 2022
Thompson, the grandson and nephew of Chicago’s two longest-serving mayors, was convicted by a federal jury in February 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. 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 and should be released just before Christmas.
Ricardo Muñoz (22nd ward)
Pleaded guilty 2021
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 also transferred $16,000 to pay college tuition for an unidentified person, according to the charges. He was sentenced to 13 months in prison.
Sandi Jackson (7th ward)
Pleaded guilty 2013
Prosecutors say she was involved in most of her husband’s, Jesse Jackson Jr.’s, illicit spending and did not declare about $600,000 in taxable income. She pleaded guilty to one felony count of filing false U.S. income tax returns.
William Beavers (7th ward)
Convicted 2013
Failing to pay taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars he took out of his campaign fund and used for gambling and other personal expenses.
Ed Vrdolyak (10th ward)
Pleaded guilty 2008
Pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit mail fraud but didn’t agree to cooperate with federal authorities in a scheme to collect a $1.5 million fee when Rosalind Franklin University went to sell a Gold Coast property. In 2016, Vrdolyak pleaded not guilty to charges alleging he obstructed an IRS investigation into a secret deal he cut in the 1990s to pocket millions of dollars from the massive tobacco lawsuit settlement without doing any work.
James Laski (23rd ward)
Pleaded guilty 2006
For taking nearly $50,000 in bribes to steer city business to trucking companies run by his friends. Laski, a former City Clerk, also told federal investigators he was involved in ghost payrolling while an alderman in the early 1990s.
Joseph Kotlarz (35th ward)
Convicted 1997
The former alderman used a public land deal to steal $190,000 from the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority when he was its chief and a state representative. He served a 6-month sentence in the DuPage County Jail, and was sentenced to four years’ probation, 400 hours of community service and ordered to pay $190,000 in restitution.
Sources: Tribune reporting and archives, International City/County Management Association, news reports
