The Watchdogs
Investigations of government, politicians, education, business and issues affecting taxpayers and consumers.
Has Friday Morning Swim Club gotten too big for its own good? As more people join the early morning plunge, the club is breaking almost every rule the park district has about swimming — and getting away with it.
Illinois Gaming Board officials won’t say whether they knew of the illegal operation when they gave Heidner a video gambling license.
“I didn’t believe we should be giving a contract to a firm with a history of fraud,” says the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District’s Cameron Davis, whose agency hired Joel Kennedy Constructing Corp.
And City Hall’s inspector general says she is continuing to investigate possible Paycheck Protection Program fraud.
Chicago gang boss Jeff Fort. Chicago Outfit hitman Harry Aleman. Daley nephew Richard J. “R.J.” Vanecko. Actor Jussie Smollett. These were among Toomin’s big cases.
Jimenez won a $25 million wrongful-conviction verdict for a killing when he was 13, then lavished cash on his gang. After his 12-year term, “I think he wants to lead a normal life,” his lawyer says.
Former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore contested the move to suspend her law license, but the state Supreme Court ruled against her.
Interim Cook County Inspector General Steven Cyranoski found that she improperly gave identifying information on juvenile clients to a nonprofit where she later took a job.
The dismissal means ComEd no longer faces criminal charges and avoids conviction, while others have faced prison time as a result of the investigation that targeted former state House Speaker Michael Madigan.
Interim Cook County Inspector General Steven Cyranoski says, over the past year, 25 county workers were found to have ripped off the federal Paycheck Protection Program.
A letter from the city’s top police oversight official also raises questions of whether the officers snatched up guns, drugs and cash without turning in the evidence.
Anne Pramaggiore was found guilty of bribing former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. Now she’s fighting to keep her law license.
The Heidners didn’t contest that they owe $5,083,274 in personal federal income taxes from 2021. They say it will all be paid off “by the end of August.”
Details about the case against Timothy Mapes were revealed in a 65-page document filed by prosecutors early Tuesday morning, four weeks ahead of Mapes’ trial on perjury and attempted obstruction of justice charges.
Canadian wildfires ”are going to burn all summer and into the fall. We might be under the gun again,” one expert says. But an Argonne National Laboratory scientist sounds a hopeful note on climate change: “We can do something about it. It is a result of our actions.”
Officials wouldn’t say whether any officers had been stripped of police powers or if accusations involving the teenager had been turned over to prosecutors.
Losses from the market downturn were offset somewhat by taxes on sales, transactions, restaurants and amusements, the 2022 financial report from Deloitte & Touche says.
The firefighter was taken to West Suburban Medical Center, where he was listed in serious condition, fire officials said.
Chicago Public Schools records also show long delays at some schools between when lead paint hazards were identified and removed.
Agent Brendan O’Leary told jurors that Michael Madigan depended on “his tight inner circle,” which is why the FBI was so interested in hearing what his longtime chief of staff, Tim Mapes, would say in front of a grand jury.
Defense attorneys argued that Tim Mapes did not lie to a grand jury in 2021 but didn’t know or couldn’t remember the answers to certain questions he was asked under oath.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia Schwartz has signaled one witness will likely be former state Rep. Greg Harris, who was secretly recorded by the FBI speaking with a longtime Madigan ally about becoming majority leader.
His lawyers say he testified truthfully for hours in response to questions from prosecutors who asked more than 650 questions.
Tim Mapes goes on trial Monday on charges of perjury and attempted obstruction of justice for his alleged bid to block the criminal investigation of the former House speaker and of Springfield insider Michael McClain.
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