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Scandals'
Legal Fees Cost Taxpayers $13m; Fran Spielman, The Chicago
Sun-Times The Daley administration doled out more than $13 million in legal fees to politically connected law firms from Jan. 1, 2006, through mid-May of this year, thanks to federal corruption investigations, the long-running Shakman case and the police torture case against former Lt. Jon Burge. The law firm of Shefsky & Froelich rode the legal gravy train to $1.9 million in fees over the 16oe-month period. The firm represented the city on matters ranging from the fight to save Chicago's minority set-aside ordinance to Police Board hearings and a class-action lawsuit involving alleged towing and parking violations. Shefsky & Froelich counts among its partners the city's former Corporation Counsel Brian Crowe. Crowe's successor and protege Mara Georges decides which firms get legal work that cannot be performed by her $27.1 million-a-year department and its 345 full time attorneys and clerical employees. Rock Fusco LLC, the law firm founded by former state Senate President Phil Rock, took in nearly $1.6 million over the same period, defending the city in a series of cases, including a wrongful-conviction suit. Georges is the daughter of former Circuit Court Judge Peter Georges, a friend of Rock's. Rock's law firm once employed both Crowe and Georges as partners. Last year, special prosecutors Edward Egan and Robert Boyle concluded that Burge and his Calumet Area cohorts tortured criminal suspects for two decades while police brass looked the other way. The report concluded it was too late to prosecute because the statute of limitations had passed. Burge Legal Fees Draw Fire Twenty-six aldermen have co-signed a resolution that calls for City Council hearings on what critics call the "whitewash" report. Aldermen and civil rights attorneys have also blasted the city for continuing to pay fees of lawyers representing Burge and other police detectives in five civil rights lawsuits. Documents supplied by the city in response to a Freedom of Information Act request show $2.04 million in Burge-related legal fees in 2006 -- and $399,416 more during the first 5oe months of this year. A large chunk of those fees went to Dykema Gossett PLLC. The 2005-2006 Sullivan's Law Directory lists the firm's "government relations professional" as William Lipinski, the former Southwest Side congressman and longtime Mayor Daley ally. The law firms of Greene and Letts, Itasca-based James G. Sotos & Associates and Freeborn & Peters also shared in Burge-related fees. Freeborn & Peters is a heavy contributor to Gov. Blagojevich. One of the firm's partners is Roger Bickel, a former state ethics commission chairman and riverboat casino lobbyist who was George Ryan's top lawyer during the convicted former governor's days as lieutenant governor and secretary of state. The law firm of Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw was paid $213,537 over the 16oe-month period to represent Daley in the Shakman case settled with the creation of a $12 million fund to compensate victims of the city's rigged hiring system. Former Illinois Attorney General Tyrone C. Fahner represented the mayor. Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw partners once included the mayor's brother and still include two former Daley chiefs of staff. 'Criminal Enterprise' Chicago taxpayers coughed up $251,314 in legal fees in 2006 to represent city employees drawn into federal investigations of the mayor's former patronage chief -- convicted last summer of rigging city hiring to benefit pro-Daley political workers -- and of former Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Al Sanchez. The law office of Mark L. Rotert was paid $15,199 in 2007 to represent former Buildings Commissioner Stan Kaderbek in a racketeering lawsuit that accuses political operatives with ties to Daley of shaking down a developer. The developer, Thomas Snitzer, has called the 11th Ward Regular Democratic Organization a "criminal enterprise." He contends Daley's former political enforcer Tim Degnan and the mayor's brother Cook County Commissioner John Daley have control over development in the 11th Ward and that they conspired to shut down Bridgeport Village after demands from Degnan and developer Thomas DiPiazza were not met. The firm of Franczek Sullivan P.C. took in nearly $352,000 in legal fees over the 16oe-month period. Jim Franczek is the city's chief labor negotiator. |
