Tim Mapes, 69, Madigan’s fierce gatekeeper for decades, reported Tuesday to a medium-security federal prison in Pensacola, Florida, to begin serving his 30-month sentence for perjury, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
Under federal rules, Mapes must serve 85% of his sentence, meaning with good behavior, he can expect to be released sometime in July 2026. An official release date will be set later by the prisons bureau.
It’s the latest stop on a downward slide for a man who served for years as Madigan’s chief of staff, House clerk and executive director of the Madigan-run Illinois Democratic Party. The penitentiary is also a huge comedown for a guy who used to march throughout the House and bark orders to lawmakers at will — all with Madigan’s imprimatur.
Records show Mapes has at least one familiar face behind bars. The same Pensacola prison currently houses former state Rep. Luis Arroyo, a Chicago Democrat convicted in an unrelated bribery scheme involving sweepstakes gaming legislation. Arroyo was sentenced to 57 months last year and is due to be released in December 2025.
Mapes was convicted by a jury in August of perjury and attempted obstruction of justice charges alleging he lied to a grand jury in 2021 in a failed attempt to protect Madigan from a widening political corruption investigation.
When he went in for his interview, Mapes had been immunized by the U.S. attorney’s office, meaning he could not be prosecuted for what he said as long as it was the truth.
In its decision, the jury found Mapes had lied on every occasion alleged by prosecutors in the indictment, which consisted mostly of a series of “I don’t recall” answers to questions about “assignments” Madigan handed down to his longtime confidant, Michael McClain.
In May 2023, McClain was found guilty along with three others in a bribery conspiracy to funnel payments from Commonwealth Edison to Madigan associates in hopes of gaining the speaker’s influence over the utility’s legislative agenda in Springfield.
Madigan lost the speakership and resigned his House seat in 2021, a year before being indicted along with McClain in a separate racketeering case alleging Madigan ran a criminal enterprise that used his power of elected office to shake down ComEd and AT&T and a real estate developer in Chinatown.
The trial for Madigan and McClain was supposed to start in April but was delayed six months after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to review an Indiana case involving the same federal bribery statute.
rlong@chicagotribune.com
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
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“I asked him, ‘Hey dad, is there anywhere you want to go? Is there anything you want to do?’” Justin Leinenweber told the Tribune. “And, he was like, ‘I don’t have a bucket list. I’ve sort of done everything I wanted to do.’”
He said his father knew he could have stepped down from the bench 20 years ago and made millions in private practice doing arbitrations, but he didn’t care.
“He wasn’t in it for the money,” Justin Leinenweber said. “He wasn’t in it to have expensive watches and expensive cars. He loved what he did, and he said, ‘I’m gonna do it as long as I can.’ I really think he got everything out of his life. And he really had very few regrets.”
Harry Leinenweber, a Joliet native who served in the Illinois legislature before being nominated to the federal bench by President Ronald Reagan, died at home Tuesday evening of complications from lung cancer, according to his family. He was 87.
Leinenweber, who just celebrated a birthday last week, had kept a very active schedule before announcing his health issues in his courtroom in January, presiding over the high-profile trials of singer R. Kelly in 2022 and the “ComEd Four” political corruption case last year.
He is survived by his wife, former U.S. Labor Secretary Lynn Martin, and seven children and stepchildren. Services are pending.
In a statement released Tuesday night, U.S. District Chief Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer called Leinenweber “a friend, mentor, and model jurist.”
“My colleagues and I are deeply saddened by Judge Leinenweber’s passing. We hope for comfort and peace for his family,” Pallmeyer wrote. “We thank his family for sharing him with us for over 39 years.”
Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot wrote in a statement that she “had the honor” of appearing before Leinenweber many times over the course of her legal career, both in private practice and as an assistant U.S. attorney.
“He was a judge who clearly loved his job, even after many years on the bench, and he respected litigants,” Lightfoot said.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee and served with Leinenweber’s wife in the House of Representatives, said in a statement Wednesday that Leinenweber “was respected for his knowledge of the law and his reputation for fairness.”
”I always knew that he would bring that reputation to every assignment,” Durbin said. “He never disappointed.”
Known for his calm temperament and friendly demeanor, Leinenweber was respected by lawyers on both sides as a considerate jurist with an impeccable knowledge of the law.
“He was a giant who exuded such decency,” said attorney Daniel Collins of the Chicago-based firm Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP. “He was a guy you wanted to be in front of, because you just know that whatever he decided, it was out of pure common sense.”
Collins said he got a window into Leinenweber’s humanity during the 2013 sentencing of David Coleman Headley for his role in planning the deadly 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, and a would-be attack on a newspaper in Denmark.
Collins, who at the time was the lead federal prosecutor on the case, said his team wanted Leinenweber to hear directly from the wife of the one American killed in the Mumbai attack, who lived in Chicago. He said Leinenweber took his time and spoke to her personally.
“He was genuinely moved by her expression of loss and description of what this attack did to her and her family,” Collins said. “I remember how well he handled that. It was incredibly emotional for everyone and he was just such a pro.”
A decade later, Leinenweber found himself presiding over another hot-button case, this time the #MeToo-era trial of Kelly, who stood accused of sexually abusing underage girls on videotape and then conspiring with his manager to cover up evidence.
Kelly’s lead attorney, Jennifer Bonjean, said she was struck by Leinenweber’s “remarkable” commitment to ensuring that everyone got a fair shake in his courtroom, as well as his refusal to “get on the bandwagon” when it came to a high-profile defendant like Kelly.
“He called balls and strikes as he saw them and let the attorneys duke it out,” she said. “As a trial attorney you had to respect that, because it doesn’t always occur.”
One particular moment came up early in the trial, when Leinenweber sided with Kelly’s attorneys on several claims that prosecutors had intentionally struck Black jurors from the panel.
“He put three people of color back on that jury,” Bonjean said, adding that it was rare for attorneys to win one such challenge, let alone three. “It showed he understood that R. Kelly was entitled to a jury of his peers. …I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Always known for his dry wit, Leinenweber capped off that contentious day of jury selection by telling the attorneys to enjoy what was left of their evening.
“I’m going to have a martini in a short while,” he said.
Bonjean said Leinenweber was “fearless” about his rulings and didn’t care how they would play in the news or public opinion. But he always had a soft side, particularly for good lawyering.
At one point in the Kelly trial, Bonjean said she was worried after requesting a mistrial for what seemed maybe like one time too many. But during a sidebar, Leinenweber reassured her that he got it.
“He said, ‘Ms. Bonjean, don’t ever apologize for doing your job,’” she said.
Leinenweber was born in Joliet on June 3, 1937, graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 1959 and earned his law degree from the University of Chicago in 1962.
Leinenweber formed his own private practice in his hometown and served as town counsel for several area cities until being elected to the Illinois General Assembly in 1973.
Two years after returning to the law in 1983, Leinenweber was preparing to take a deposition when he got word from his secretary that the president of the United States had called and asked to speak with him.
“I direct-dialed the President of the United States,” Leinenweber told his son for an article in the Illinois State Bar Association in 2014. “President Reagan said ‘Harry, I was about to sign a commission appointing you as a federal district judge for the Northern District of Illinois, but I thought I better get your permission first. Do I have it?’ And I stumbled out ‘yes you do.’”
Leinenweber was confirmed as a district judge in December 1985. Over his nearly 40 years on the bench, Leinenweber oversaw many of the city’s most significant trials, from political corruption to terrorism and gang cases like Gangster Disciples boss Larry Hoover.
Off the bench, Leinenweber enjoyed being surrounded by friends and family. And he was always telling stories.
Among the yarns Leinenweber liked to spin involved the time he was at a conference for new judges that was being held in the South, according to his son Justin, who is also an attorney. Breakfast had always been Leinenweber’s most important meal of the day, and he lauded the plate he was served: eggs sunny side up, bacon, toast, and, of course, grits.
Leinenweber said he told a judge from Alabama that the grits made it a great southern breakfast. The Alabama judge put down his fork and shot back, “That’s not a southern breakfast. A southern breakfast is squirrel.”
“He had no enemies. He really didn’t. He just cared about people,” Justin Leinenweber said. “He cared about the law, and he just wanted to do right by people and do right by the profession. It just meant so much to him to be a judge. I think that singular thing, other than his family, he was most proud of and it was just the perfect fit for him.”
That passion seemed to seep into every interaction Leinenweber had at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, be it his law clerks, attorneys, defendants, other judges, or even jurors who were selected to sit in his courtroom.
Chicago defense attorney Steve Greenberg said he was representing then-accused wife killer Drew Peterson in state court and had never met Leinenweber when the judge approached him one time in the cafeteria of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse and started asking all sorts of questions about the case.
“He was the kind of guy where you would feel like you were just sitting on the barstool next to him and having a chat,” Greenberg said. “He was one of the nicest, most unpretentious people you could ever meet.”
Robert Garnes, one of the jurors in “ComEd Four” case involving an alleged effort by utility executives and lobbyists to bribe then-House Speaker Michael Madigan, said he was so impressed by Leinenweber’s quiet control of his courtroom that he hopes to write a book someday about the experience.
“There were so many moments where I thought he was going to slam down his gavel and yell, “Order in the court!’ just like on TV,” Garnes said. “But he never did, even when things got nasty (between the lawyers) and I thought fights were going to break out.”
Garnes said that after the trial ended with them unanimously finding all four defendants guilty, he was one of a handful of jurors who stuck around to talk to Leinenweber about what they all just collectively went through.
“He came back to the jury room and shook our hands and thanked us for our courageousness,” Garnes said. “He said he was proud of us. I really appreciated that.”
Leinenweber had been scheduled to sentence the four defendants in the ComEd case — former CEO Anne Pramaggiore, internal lobbyist John Hooker, consultant Jay Doherty, and ex-lobbyist Michael McClain — in January, but those hearings were delayed first by the judge’s health issues and later by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that is due out later this month.
With Leinenweber’s passing, the case will be assigned to a new judge who will have to get up to speed on the details, which will likely further delay any final resolution.
Justin Leinenweber said that aside from his love of the law and his family, his dad was also a world-class Cubs fan. He had been hooked ever since his teacher in 1945 wheeled a radio into the classroom so they could listen to the game because she loved the team.
Decades later, Leinenweber’s law clerks would take the judge and his former clerks to a Cubs game to celebrate his birthday, his son said. “He loved those games and it meant so much to him to see his clerks and how they had all gone on to do so many incredible things.”
Justin Leinenweber said one of his favorite memories was taking his dad to Game 5 of the 2016 World Series at Wrigley Field.
“I swear we did not sit down the entire time,” he said. “Probably the biggest smile I ever saw on his face as the game went final and the Cubs were on their way to being World Champs.”
But in the end, his son said, Leinenweber “was a realist.”
“He always preferred ‘A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request’ to ‘Go Cubs Go,’” he said.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
]]>But in contrast to the sweeping corruption for which the ex-alderman was convicted last year, the supporters who wrote in hopes of a lenient sentence said, over and over, that Burke used his clout for good.
Among the dozens of letter-writers: high-profile names in local legal circles and law enforcement, Burke’s family members, a former defensive end for the Bears, and several local Catholic clergymen. A now-retired firefighter wrote that Burke pulled strings to make sure his severely disabled son would not be denied insurance coverage. The former principal of a Southwest Side elementary school said Burke helped the struggling school get two playgrounds, an electronic message board and support for its pre-K program.
Burke, the longtime leader of the powerful City Council Finance Committee, is slated to be sentenced later this month by U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall after jurors found him guilty of scheming to use his considerable City Hall clout to try to win business for his private property tax law firm.
In their request for a 10-year prison sentence, prosecutors noted that Burke’s powerful well-wishers were “misguided,” and that a lengthy prison term is necessary to stop him from “engaging in the same type of conduct in conjunction with public officials in the future.”
“It is apparent from the character letters received so far and the reaction to Burke’s prosecution that there are those who lurk in the bowels of City government and walk in its corridors of power who are still strong allies of Burke,” they wrote. “… High-level public officials in this city and in this state like Burke need to receive a simple, undiluted, and unequivocal warning loud and clear: You will pay dearly — regardless of your age — if you choose the dark path of corruption that Burke decided to walk for many years.”
Burke’s attorneys, by contrast, have asked for an “alternative to incarceration” such as home confinement, noting his age and declining health.
Dozens of letters were made public this week ahead of Burke’s sentencing, including one from former Bears player Richard Dent, a Hall of Famer who described Burke as a “great friend and adviser” who helped minority-owned businesses in the city.
Several letters came from the clergy; Burke is a devout Catholic. His lawyers might be hoping that letters from local church leadership carry weight with Kendall, who serves on the Board of Governors for the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Chicago.
“He has been, I maintain, as much a pastor as a politician,” wrote the Rev. Clete Kiley, a special adviser to Cardinal Blase Cupich. “I hope people will take off the political lens which seems to impose itself on so much today, and certainly in our media accounts, and see this man for who is and all he has done for others across his lifetime.”
Many former top Chicago police officials — including former Superintendents Garry McCarthy and Phil Cline — wrote to support the ex-alderman, who is himself a former cop. Burke helped make sure that officers injured in the line of duty got the benefits to which they were entitled, wrote Cline, noting that he “was always responsive to our inquiries, and recognized the sacrifices made by Chicago’s finest.”
Richard “Rick” Simon, a well-connected former police officer with a controversial past, wrote that Burke would quietly pick up the check for officers who came into restaurants where Burke was dining.
“Ed would talk to the officers like they were old friends and made them feel like the most important people in the room because to Ed, they were,” wrote Simon, who heads the clout-heavy janitorial services firm United Maintenance.
Another letter came from Officer Carlos Yanez Jr., who was critically injured in the same 2021 shooting that killed Officer Ella French. Burke reached out to his father and offered guidance in the aftermath of the shooting, Yanez wrote. “For that I am grateful, for my family this was such an uncertain and chaotic time.”
Letters also came from judges — including some who landed their spot on the bench with the help of the Burkes, by way of Burke’s role as the Democratic point man on endorsements for local judges or Anne Burke’s appointments while she served on the Supreme Court.
Christopher Lawler, who met the alderman when first appointed to the bench by his wife 11 years ago, asked Kendall to “consider his half-century of public service and his charitable works and good deeds and show him the mercy of the court which I believe he deserves.”
Daniel Pierce said he would “make no apologies” for asking for Burke’s assistance in appointments to the circuit and appellate court, and asked Kendall to consider Burke’s age as well as his “remarkable history and commitment to doing the right thing.”
Kerry Peck, a past president of the Chicago Bar Association, noted that Burke has been dealing with significant health problems, including a battle with prostate cancer and psychological issues, since his indictment.
Peck said Burke’s life “has crumbled as a result of these proceedings,” and he asked Kendall to show mercy on a man who put his family, religion and community first. Peck said he had observed the Ed Burke not seen by newspaper reporters.
Several letters in support of Burke were also made public last month, including one from former mayoral candidate Paul Vallas, who wrote that Burke’s “professional impact on Chicago is a great legacy.”
While Burke stood out among his aldermanic colleagues during his 54 years on the council, he now stands alongside dozens of them as another corrupt former alderman facing sentencing.
Burke is eligible to collect nearly $50,000 in pension this year — half of his $99,200 annual rate— because pensions aren’t cut off for City Hall officials convicted of corruption until they are sentenced.
Days after his late December conviction, Burke received his annual 3% pension bump right on schedule when the calendar turned to 2024.
But Burke is eligible for a refund of the money he personally paid into his pension over his 54 years on the City Council.
Burke stands to be refunded about $540,000 even if city pension officials rule him ineligible to receive more monthly pension payments.
His wife, the retired former Supreme Court justice who watched her husband’s trial from a front-row seat in the federal courtroom, receives an annual state pension of more than $226,000.
Burke became alderman following the death of his father, who had long held the 14th Ward position, and rose to power in the era of Mayor Richard J. Daley, the patronage king who perfected the vaunted Democratic machine.
Burke earned infamy in the 1980s for trying to thwart virtually every major move of Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor, during the volatile “Council Wars.” Gathering immense power, he paved the way for his wife to become chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, ran the council’s Finance Committee like his own personal fiefdom and oversaw a law firm that constantly put him into ethically questionable positions.
]]>“Again and again, Burke used his significant political power to solicit and receive bribes from entities with business before the city of Chicago—all so he could obtain legal business for his private law firm and financially benefit his close personal associates,” prosecutors wrote in their 51-page filing. “To this day, Burke has expressed no remorse for his crimes; indeed, he continues to deny he did a single thing wrong.”
The sentence requested by the U.S. attorney’s office would mean that Burke could very well die in prison. But a lengthy term behind bars is warranted, prosecutors say, given the “mountain” of evidence in the case — including hundreds of undercover recordings — that captured Burke in his own words and make it “obvious that Burke was no novice when it came to corruption.”
“Burke operated as a seasoned professional when it came to identifying new potential clients for his law firm and exploiting his power and position in order to secure their business,” prosecutors wrote.
To bolster their argument about the cost of Burke’s crimes, prosecutors estimated the overall financial loss he caused amounted to nearly $830,000.
Shortly before the midnight deadline, lawyers for Burke asked in a filing of their own for an “alternative to incarceration” such as a period of home confinement, writing Burke is a “fundamentally decent man” who did a lot of good for his city over a six-decade career.
They also argued the trial evidence showed Burke “did not receive a single penny” from his offenses, “nor did he cause any serious financial harm to any party.” Even the witnesses who were allegedly being shaken down testified Burke’s demeanor was “respectful, professional, and friendly—never aggressive, threatening, nor intimidating,” Burke’s filing stated.
Burke’s sentencing before U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall on June 24 will be closely watched in Illinois political circles. He’s the most powerful politician to face jail time here since former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert was given 15 months in 2016 for paying hush money payments to cover up decades-old sexual abuse of minors.
Burke’s fate will certainly be of keen interest to former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who faces his own racketeering trial in October. Madigan, who like Burke was a Southwest Side Democrat steeped in the old Chicago political machine, was dethroned in 2021 in the midst of the federal investigation following a nationwide 36-year record run as the leader of his legislative chamber.
Meanwhile, a jury in December found Burke, the longtime leader of the powerful City Council Finance Committee, guilty of a series of schemes to use his considerable City Hall clout to try and win business from developers for his private property tax law firm.
Among them were efforts to woo the New York-based developers of the massive, $600 million renovation of the Old Post Office, extorting the Texas owners of a Burger King who were seeking to renovate a restaurant in Burke’s 14th Ward, and intervening on behalf of Charles Cui, a developer in Portage Park who wanted help getting a pole sign approved for a new Binny’s Beverage Depot location.
Burke was also found guilty of attempted extortion for threatening to hold up a fee increase for the Field Museum because he was angry the museum had ignored an internship application from his goddaughter, who is the daughter of former 32nd Ward Ald. Terry Gabinski, Burke’s longtime friend.
The jury acquitted Burke on one count of conspiracy to commit extortion related to the Burger King project.
Also convicted was Cui, whose sentencing is set for next month.
The jury acquitted Burke’s longtime 14th Ward aide, Peter Andrews, of all counts alleging he helped Burke pressure the Burger King owners into hiring Burke’s law firm by shutting down their restaurant renovation.
Burke’s high-profile, six-week trial featured some 38 witnesses and more than 100 secretly recorded videos and wiretapped recordings, offering a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at one of Chicago’s top political power brokers at work.
At the heart of the case were dozens of wiretapped phone calls and secretly recorded meetings made by Daniel Solis, the former 25th Ward alderman who turned FBI mole after being confronted in 2016 with his own wrongdoing.
In closing arguments, prosecutors put up on large video screens a series of now-notorious statements made by Burke on the recordings. Among them: “The cash register has not rung yet,” “They can go (expletive) themselves,” and “Did we land the tuna?”
Several letters in support of Burke were made public last month, including one from former mayoral candidate Paul Vallas who wrote Burke’s “professional impact on Chicago is a great legacy.”
In their filing late Monday, Burke’s attorneys attached dozens of more letters of support from people of all walks of life, including former U.S. Attorney Dan Webb, ex-Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, and current and former City Council colleagues like Ald. Nicholas Sposato, 38th, and former 40th Ward Ald. Patrick O’Connor.
Burke’s wife Anne, formerly the chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, described Burke as a devoted husband and father who encouraged her to finish college and go to law school. He also helped “a hundred or more” struggling city kids with tuition and jobs, she wrote.
“He has always seen his role as taking care of people, whether they need money, or a job, or help fighting insurance companies,” she wrote. “… I am devastated by the prospect that I will not be with Ed at the end of our lives. Please find compassion through the Holy Spirit in your decision.”
Webb, a high-profile litigator who defended former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, said he has been personal friends with the Burke family for 40 years and urged the judge to “evaluate the totality of the person being sentenced.”
“At no time did I ever see any indication that he was other than a dedicated public servant, always interested in serving the citizens of the City of Chicago,” Webb wrote.
McCarthy wrote that while he respects the jury’s decision it is “hard to reconcile the Ed Burke that I know with the allegations in the case.”
“A lifetime of service by the Burke family has come crashing down on them,” McCarthy wrote. “The public humiliation has been overwhelming. Fifty-four years as the longest serving Alderman in Chicago’s history. Hundreds, if not thousands of personal touches to make life better for his constituents. The strain on Mr. Burke has at times been unbearable, and yet he has put on a brave face for his family.”
Even Bill Kurtis, the longtime broadcaster, said he followed Burke’s “devotion to his role on the City Council and his dedication to his constituents that made a lasting impression.”
“I have thought Ed Burke was the model of what an alderman should be,” Kurtis wrote. “I still think that.”
In their filing on Monday, however, prosecutors quoted the late U.S. District Judge James Zagel, who in sentencing former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to 14 years in prison, said he was responsible for corruption that tore the fabric of the state.
Prosecutors said Burke did similar damage, and that a lengthy sentence was necessary to deter others — including some of those very supporters who wrote letters singing Burke’s praises.
“Burke no longer holds public office. But it is apparent from the character letters received so far that there are those who lurk in the bowels of city government and walk in its corridors of power who are still strong allies of Burke,” the prosecution filing stated. “It would be naïve to think that there is anything stopping Burke, the consummate political insider with his coterie of misguided friends and well-wishers, from engaging in the same type of conduct in conjunction with public officials in the future.”
Burke’s lawyers also argued his age and declining health should qualify him for a lighter sentence. Burke was previously treated for prostate cancer, suffered a mini-stroke in 2018 that caused him to fall, has recently experienced seizures and currently suffers from hypertension, anxiety and “depressed mood,” according to the defense filing.
“At age eighty and with several serious acute and chronic medical issues, Mr. Burke would be an expensive prisoner to house for any length of time, and even a short sentence is likely to amount to a death sentence,” his attorneys wrote.
Prosecutors called that notion “dead wrong.”
“High-level public officials in this city and in this state like Burke need to receive a simple, undiluted, and unequivocal warning loud and clear: You will pay dearly—regardless of your age—if you choose the dark path of corruption that Burke decided to walk for many years,” the prosecution filing stated.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
]]>Syed Shaukat Ahmed, 58, was arrested this week on a three-count criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court with Medicare fraud, transfer of fraudulently obtained funds, and using illegally obtained money to pay off his mortgage.
Agents stopped Ahmed on Monday at O’Hare International Airport, where he was scheduled to board a flight to Pakistan with his family, according to court records. It was later determined that it was a scheduled annual trip back to his home country and apparently not an attempt to flee prosecution.
Still, prosecutors initially sought to have Ahmed held in custody pending trial. But he was released Thursday after posting a $5 million bond secured by two homes — including the same Morton Grove house he allegedly paid off with a $560,000 cashier’s check last year, court records show.
Ahmed’s attorney, Eric Pruitt, declined to comment on the charges Friday.
Syed’s arrest is the latest court action to stem from a wave of similar schemes, mostly taking advantage of government programs to ease costs for consumers for pandemic-related testing, including an effort by the Biden administration to provide free at-home test kits to anyone by having the providers directly bill Medicare.
The charges against Syed are believed to be the biggest single COVID-19 fraud scheme to be charged in federal court in Chicago since the onset of the pandemic more than four years ago.
According to the complaint, the investigation began in April 2023 when authorities detected a massive spike in Medicare billings for at-home COVID-19 tests emanating from several Chicago-area labs.
Two of those companies, Zoom Lab Co. and Western Labs Co., both in Chicago, had been recently founded by Syed and were responsible for a spike of “astronomical levels” beginning April 17, 2023, the complaint stated.
Over a 52-day period, Syed’s two labs billed Medicare for a total of $60.3 million for tests for more than 3 million at-home test kits on behalf of about 364,000 Medicare recipients, the charges stated.
Many of those purported to have requested the tests lived out of state and told authorities they never asked for them, according to the complaint.
What’s more, Syed’s companies billed Medicare on behalf of about 4,100 people who turned out to be dead, the complaint stated. The investigation was ongoing.
When agents visited Zoom Labs’ purported headquarters in the 2700 block of West Peterson Avenue last year, all that was there was an empty storefront with a “for lease” sign, the complaint stated. A similar scenario was found at Western Labs in the 200 block of North Western Avenue, where the address led to a low, vacant brick building behind a gas station.
In all, Medicare paid out $32 million to Syed’s companies before further payments were frozen in an escrow account due to suspected fraud, the complaint stated. While the fraud was ongoing, Syed withdrew hundreds of thousands of dollars from the accounts in the form of cashier’s checks, including one check for $569,000 that he used on June 15, 2023, to pay off his home mortgage, the complaint alleged.
Federal authorities later filed warrants to seize up to $32 million from more than half a dozen bank accounts set up in Syed’s name, the charges stated.
The complaint against Syed was filed just a week after another man, Fasiur Syed, 46, was arrested on similar allegations that he fraudulently billed Medicare for $6.2 million in home COVID tests through his company, Advanced Diagnostic Solutions of Bensenville.
At Fasuir Syed’s detention hearing last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Hayes called the COVID test schemes “an epidemic in this district.”
Last year, federal authorities filed warrants to seize $43 million in fraudulent Medicare payments for test kits billed by a shell company called SK Diagnostics, which was headquartered in an empty storefront on North Cicero Avenue, court records show.
Another warrant earlier this year sought to hold $5.1 million in Medicare payments to a company called State Scientific, which like other companies had billed a massive amount of tests in a very short time period, court records show.
On June 5, 2023, law enforcement went to State Scientific’s so-called headquarters in the 1500 block of North Mannheim Road in Stone Park and found that it was actually a restaurant, court records show.
“Immediately next to the restaurant was a vacant area with a sign that read, ‘For Rent,’ with no apparent presence of State Scientific,” the seizure warrant stated.
And in April, Baqar Hussain Razv Syed pleaded guilty in Chicago’s federal court to being the front man for a fraud involving Schaumburg-based Luna Labs, which in one three-month period in 2023 billed Medicare for more than $14 million in fraudulent tests, court records show.
Baqar Syed’s plea agreement with prosecutors stated his co-schemers, who have not been charged, agreed to pay him $10,000 a month for his services.
He is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly on July 18.
It’s not clear if any of the defendants are related.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
]]>Gary Roberson, who goes by the nickname “Gotti,” and Joseph Matos, whose street name is “Troubles,” were charged in an indictment unsealed Thursday with murder in furtherance of racketeering conspiracy, which could bring the death penalty if convicted, court records show.
Roberson, 40, of Chicago, was arrested May 16 and is being held without bond. That same day, the FBI raided a home in the 2200 block of West Farragut Avenue, where Matos was believed to be living with relatives, but he was not found there, according to court records.
Matos remained a fugitive as of Friday, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
The indictment alleged Roberson and Matos are members of the Milwaukee Kings, a street gang based on Chicago’s North Side that uses violence and intimidation to control turf and boost its reputation.
The bare-bones, 18-page indictment alleged only one specific act of violence: the July 3, 2021, slaying of Chrys Carvajal, who was fatally shot in the back and abdomen in the 2200 block of North Lockwood Avenue in the Hanson Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side.
According to Tribune reports at the time, Carvajal had recently completed Army basic training and was waiting to be assigned to a unit with the Illinois National Guard.
The 19-year-old grew up in the Austin neighborhood before his mother, who raised him and three other siblings, moved them to Portage Park out of fear of violence, relatives told the Tribune.
Police arrested a suspect shortly after the shooting but the Cook County state’s attorney’s office declined charges at the time, citing a lack of evidence.
Court records show the indictment against Roberson and Matos was filed under seal on May 14. Two days later, neighbors on West Farragut emerged from their houses as more than two dozen FBI officers wearing camouflage circled a house on foot. Agents used flash bangs prior to entry, shattering a front window of the two-story beige-colored home.
It’s unclear what evidence was gathered. The search warrant filed in the case remains under seal.
At a news conference after Carvajal’s slaying, his sister, Jennifer Ramirez said he was home on leave from basic training for less than a month before he was killed leaving a house party.
“He was fighting for our country,” Ramirez said. “He comes to Chicago, and he gets killed in the streets of Chicago.”
She said her brother, who died a week before his 20th birthday, aspired to be a police officer since he was a young boy, and he cared deeply for his family and others.
“We have to live a whole life without my brother,” she said. “You always see the news and think it’s going to happen to somebody else and never you.”
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
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The development was revealed at a hearing Thursday in the lawsuit filed by the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, which is seeking an injunction blocking the city from confining protesters to places far from the convention site in Grant Park.
A lawyer for the city told U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood that city officials have now received enough information from the U.S. Secret Service that the Johnson administration will be able to propose a “United Center-adjacent route to the plaintiffs in this case,” though details were still being worked out behind the scenes.
The route will be usable “by multiple groups” who have applied for permits to protest near the United Center, said Chicago Law Department attorney Andrew Worseck.
One of the main issues has been the Secret Service’s security plan for the United Center, where along with McCormick Place much of the convention activity will occur, and particularly what exactly the security perimeter around the United Center will be, Worseck said. He said the Secret Service is “still in the middle of its planning process,” and further details about the security plan were not revealed in court.
Wood granted additional time for briefing on the motion for a preliminary injunction, given the parties are “engaged in a good faith effort to try and resolve the matter” short of a ruling.
But she also warned that time was of the essence, and offered to help in the negotiations if need be.
“Obviously there is time sensitivity here,” Wood said. “The convention is set in stone — that date is not going to change.”
The lawyer for the plaintiffs, Chris Williams, said his clients welcomed the judge’s input but said both sides could “give it a shot” on their own first.
Wood set a status hearing for June 25.
After the hearing, Williams told reporters in Federal Plaza that he thinks “the city is feeling a lot of pressure to resolve this case” because their Grant Park proposal is a clear violation of free speech rights, which trump any city ordinance and allow for political speech to reach a “target audience.”
“That target audience will be at the United Center, including the president of the United States, the vice president and other dignitaries from the Democratic Party,” Williams said during a news conference that included the plaintiffs and 25th Ward Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez. “They will not be on Columbus Drive four miles away on a tree-lined street.”
Williams also said the Johnson administration is only increasing the potential for unrest by trying to curtail protesters’ First Amendment rights.
“You have a recipe for a clash,” Williams said. “You have the potential for violence. You have the potential for abuse by the police. You have the potential for lawsuits against the city. And if a court later upholds that it was First Amendment speech, guess who’s on the hook? The city and all of the taxpayers of the city.”
After the Tribune asked the mayor’s office for comment, a Law Department spokeswoman responded by email saying the city had “nothing more to add” at this point.
The lawsuit was one of at least two filed in U.S. District Court earlier this year after the city blocked protest permits requested near the United Center, which will serve as the convention hall for the DNC. The denials came despite Johnson’s promises that demonstrators will have a fair platform and security. Instead, the city has so far offered each group the same two-block route through Grant Park — a proposal the groups allege doesn’t fulfill their right to be within “sight and sound” of the convention.
“The tens of thousands of people that are coming — not only from the Midwest, but all across the country — will be marching on the DNC, permit or not,” Hatem Abudayyeh, executive director of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network, said at a news conference in April. Abudayyeh also said the group hopes to “make life miserable” for top congressional and White House Democrats.
The plaintiff’s memorandum filed earlier this week specifically mentioned the desire to protest President Joe Biden’s policies regarding the ongoing conflict in Gaza. Those protest plans could not be fulfilled with an off-site march, the plaintiffs argued.
“The plaintiffs seek to direct their political speech through peaceful marches to the president of the United States, the one person who could stop the suffering in Gaza with a single phone call, while he (is) at the DNC,” the filing stated. “(City officials), relying on its parade permit ordinance, have unconstitutionally denied plaintiffs and their members’ (the) right to engage in political speech through peaceful assembly on public forums, thereby violating their First Amendment rights.”
A second federal lawsuit filed by a consortium of activist groups is seeking a similar preliminary injunction against the city for denying a permit to protest on North Michigan Avenue during the convention. U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin is helping both sides attempt to negotiate an agreement behind the scenes.
At the news conference after Thursday’s court hearing, Abudayyeh said he was “optimistic” that a resolution in his case could be reached, but added they will “continue to put pressure on the mayor’s office to make sure we get within sight and sound (of the United Center).”
He expressed alarm over comments earlier this week by Chicago Police Department Superintendent Larry Snelling, who told reporters at a briefing on convention security that thousands of officers were undergoing specialized training to “respond directly to civil unrest and the possibility of riots.”
“First Amendment protection is only there if you’re not committing a crime,” Snelling said. “You can be acting out peacefully and still breaking the law.”
Abudayyeh said Snelling’s words were “very concerning” and signaled a sort of “mass arrest policy” being put in place.
“This sounds like nothing more than a threat from a Police Department that has a history of violence against protesters,” Abudayyeh said.
The lawsuit alleges protest ordinances require the city to offer an alternative protest route with similar visibility, timing and location when it rejects a protest permit application. But city representatives have not met with protesters to negotiate routes and have instead suggested groups seeking permits could face legal penalties for making duplicative applications, according to the suit.
The city has repeatedly argued in administrative court hearings that Chicago does not have enough police to protect the event, keep protesters in check and regulate traffic, records show.
Meanwhile, demonstrators have long signaled their aim to disrupt the convention, chasing after host committee Executive Director Christy George for months.
As George led a first-look United Center tour for media in January, a handful of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied outside.
In early February, her talk show appearance at The Hideout was repeatedly interrupted as more pro-Palestinian activists unfurled banners and flags. Weeks later, as she chatted inside the Union League Club, a 100-strong group rallied on the sidewalk to demand Democrats commit to spending federal money to solve Chicago’s homelessness issue.
]]>Burke, 80, was convicted by a jury in December of racketeering conspiracy and a dozen other counts for using the clout of his elected office to try to win private law business from developers and pressure the Field Museum to hire his goddaughter.
Burke is scheduled to be sentenced June 24. Before that, however, U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall must deal with a motion by Burke’s attorneys to toss out portions of the jury’s decision and acquit the former alderman on nine counts.
Such motions are routine and rarely granted, but are a necessary legal step to an eventual appeal to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In his argument Wednesday, however, Burke attorney Chris Gair told Kendall this is “not a run-of-the-mill, throw everything up at the wall and see what sticks” motion.
Gair said they “have been very focused and precise” on instances where “no reasonable jury” could have found Burke guilty given the evidence and legal instructions.
In count after count, Gair said, prosecutors failed to show that Burke took any official action in exchange for anything of value, whether it was reading the Field Museum the riot act for dropping the ball on his goddaughter’s application, intervening in a pole sign application for a developer’s project on the Northwest Side, or pressuring Amtrak and Water Department officials in order to help the developer of the Old Post Office.
Gair agreed that the defense has a high burden to show the jury reached the wrong legal conclusion, but said the evidence is undisputed.
“If all the witnesses say ‘There was no pressure,’ the jury is not entitled to find there was pressure,” Gair said. “It’s that simple.”
Prosecutors, however, said the defense was essentially rehashing arguments it made to the jury last year. Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker told the judge: “This is not time for a closing argument.”
“The defendant made his case to the jury, had a fair trial, and the jury didn’t accept it,” Streicker said, adding that the trial featured “nothing even close to errors that jeopardize Mr. Burke’s rights.”
Much of the arguments in the nearly three-hour hearing did seem to rehash what was heard at trial.
Though Burke was not required to attend the proceedings, he chose to do so, entering the courtroom dressed in a dark gray suit and bright green pocket square and taking a seat at the defense table, where he sat with his head propped up by a fist and scribbling on a legal pad.
Burke’s wife, former Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Anne Burke, also attended, sitting behind Burke in the front row of the gallery. After the proceedings concluded, Burke donned a tan fedora and the couple walked out of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse without comment.
In addition to the pole sign and Field Museum episodes, Burke was convicted of extorting the owners of a Burger King and using his significant City Hall power to try to get law business from the New York-based developers tackling the $600 million renovation of the Old Post Office. He was acquitted on one count of conspiracy to commit extortion related to the Burger King project.
The nearly clean sweep of guilty verdicts capped a stunning fall for Burke, the former head of the city Finance Committee and a Democratic political machine master who served a record 54 years in the City Council before stepping down months before his trial.
Most post-trial proceedings are handled on paper, but Burke’s attorneys asked for in-person arguments due to the complex legal questions, and the judge agreed, writing in a recent order “this is precisely the situation where oral argument may be helpful to the court due to the voluminous filings.”
Kendall thanked both sides for their arguments Wednesday and said she’d rule on the motion shortly.
In his argument, Gair characterized the Field Museum episode as little more than Burke blowing his stack when he found out that the museum had failed to follow up on the application by his goddaughter, who is the daughter of one of Burke’s longtime friends, former Ald. Terry Gabinski.
When a museum official called Burke to ask for his support for their upcoming fee increase proposal, Burke read her the riot act and suggested he had the power to make sure it went nowhere. But Gair said it was far from extortion.
“One thing we know for sure: Ed Burke made a threat,” Gair said. “It was an empty threat. … What really happened there was he blew up in anger over being disrespected and he said something that was profoundly obnoxious.”
Gair also argued that under the law, the extortion has to be for property, and the Field Museum internship doesn’t qualify. “The possibility of a job is not property,” he said.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Sushma Raju said jurors were clearly instructed that the “property” in question was not the interview itself, but the money and other compensation connected to the job in question.
The position was “very competitive,” Raju said, but museum officials went out of their way to offer Gabinski an interview — and jurors could reasonably infer that the interview was the first step toward offering her the job.
“They can also infer that had she gone for that interview they would have offered her the job,” Raju said.
In their motion for an acquittal, the defense also noted Kendall’s own assessment of the Field Museum allegations at trial, which she called “an extremely odd attempted extortion count.”
“The court’s skepticism was well founded,” the defense filing stated. “The Hobbs Act requires an attempt to extort ‘property,’ but there was no property here, only a potential job interview with the museum, and one which was never requested by Mr. Burke.”
Burke is also arguing for an acquittal on each count related to the solicitation of legal business from Charles Cui, a developer who enlisted Burke’s help in getting the pole sign permit for a Binny’s Beverage Depot at his development in Portage Park.
The defense argued that Burke’s involvement was limited to placing two phone calls about the sign to other public officials, both of whom “explicitly denied being pressured by Burke to take official action.”
“In both cases, he simply asked for someone to look at the situation, which does not amount to official action,” the motion for acquittal stated.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Chapman, however, said that argument falls woefully short. For one, the sign had already been through the application process and was rejected, so Burke was asking other city officials to reverse that decision. Also, Chapman said, the project was wasn’t even close to Burke’s Southwest Side ward.
“It was anything but typical. In fact, it was wildly atypical,” Chapman said.
Gair sounded a similar theme when it came to the Post Office counts, arguing that Burke’s outreach to Amtrak and current and former Water Department officials to help solve critical issues for New York-based developer Harry Skydell was a genuine effort to lend his assistance to an important project, not some Machiavellian effort to use his office for personal gain.
But it would be absurd, Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur said, to think Burke wasn’t leveraging his government position in his dealings with the developers.
“Mr. Burke cloaked himself in the power of a public official from the very first meeting,” she said, emphasizing that Burke held meetings in his City Hall offices, where guests would have had to walk past glass etched with “Committee on Finance.”
“Mr. Burke was shrouding himself with the position he held, the power that he had in the city of Chicago,” she said.
Burke’s attorneys also argued the former alderman is entitled to acquittal or at least a new trial on the main racketeering charge because prosecutors “failed to prove that Mr. Burke conducted or participated in a pattern of racketeering activity” involving two or more acts.
In response, prosecutors said the evidence against Burke was overwhelming and showed he routinely abused his powerful position to target people who needed something from the city.
“When Burke did not get what he wanted, he attempted to extort entities by referencing or raising the specter of adverse action in order to get private business for his law firm or a personal benefit for a close friend,” prosecutors wrote. “As reflected in the jury’s guilty verdict on the racketeering charge, Burke’s efforts to abuse his office were not isolated episodes but rather a pervasive pattern of corrupt activity.”
Burke’s high-profile, six-week trial featured some 38 witnesses and more than 100 secretly recorded videos and wiretapped recordings, offering a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at one of Chicago’s top political power brokers at work.
At the heart of the case were dozens of wiretapped phone calls and secretly recorded meetings made by Daniel Solis, the former 25th Ward alderman who turned FBI mole after being confronted in 2016 with his own wrongdoing.
In closing arguments, prosecutors put up on large video screens a series of now-notorious statements made by Burke on the recordings. Among them: “The cash register has not rung yet,” “They can go (expletive) themselves,” and “Did we land the tuna?”
Also convicted was Cui, whose sentencing is set for next month.
Meanwhile, the jury acquitted Burke’s longtime 14th Ward aide, Peter Andrews, of all counts alleging he helped Burke pressure the Burger King owners into hiring Burke’s law firm by shutting down their restaurant renovation.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
mcreapeau@chicagotribune.com
]]>William Lewis, 57, of Burbank, entered his plea to a count of assaulting police officers during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington, D.C., court records show.
Preliminary sentencing guidelines call for 51-63 months in prison, according to Lewis’ plea agreement with prosecutors. Contreras is scheduled to sentence Lewis on Dec. 16.
Lewis’ lawyer, Blaire Dalton, had no comment Monday.
Lewis, who was arrested in November, is among nearly 50 Illinoisans to be charged in the Capitol breach, an ongoing investigation that has been described by prosecutors as the largest criminal investigation in the country’s history.
According to the charges, surveillance images showed Lewis, dressed in all black with a U.S. Army star logo and an American flag on his sleeves, in the middle of a violent mob fighting with police outside the Capitol.
Body camera footage from several Capitol police officers showed Lewis holding up a black and yellow canister of No-Pest Wasp and Hornet Killer and spraying the police line with it, the complaint alleged.
One officer who viewed the footage told the FBI he “remembers a white male wearing all black spraying something at him from a big canister,” and that the officer “experienced a burning sensation on his face and in his eyes as a result of being sprayed,” according to the complaint.
The footage then showed Lewis throwing the empty can toward officers, the complaint alleged.
Afterward, Lewis advanced to the Lower West Terrace of the Capitol building, where a stage was being constructed for the upcoming presidential inauguration, according to the complaint.
There, Lewis “used what appears to be a baton to strike and break at least three glass panes of a window located immediately to the right of the Lower West Terrace tunnel,” the complaint stated.
Lewis was allegedly identified in 2022 by two people who recognized him from an FBI page dedicated to trying to identify suspects in the Capitol attack.
More than 1,400 people have been charged as part of the investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack, including arrests in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to the U.S. Justice Department.
About 500 of those — including Lewis — have been charged with felony assault of law enforcement.
]]>Fasiur Syed, 46, a native of India who has lived in Chicago for the past eight years, was arrested last week on a criminal complaint charging him with health care fraud. Prosecutors asked that he be held without bond pending trial, arguing he had little incentive to remain here to face the charges and could be under threat from other behind-the-scenes co-schemers.
“These schemes are an epidemic in this district and they need to be stopped,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Hayes said at a detention hearing Thursday.
Syed’s attorney, Jack Corfman, argued Syed was a relatively low-level cog and made little money himself from the alleged fraud. He lives with his cousin in an apartment in Chicago’s West Rogers Park neighborhood and is employed as a ride-share driver and Amazon warehouse worker, Corfman said.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole said he was taking a chance letting Syed, who is not a U.S. citizen, out on bond, but that prosecutors had not met their burden to keep him locked up. He ordered Syed freed on a $25,000 unsecured bond and required him to surrender his passport and submit to a curfew during nonworking hours.
The judge also warned Syed that his life would become much more complicated if he tried to run.
“Don’t flee,” Cole said. “They will catch you.”
According to the 27-page complaint, law enforcement earlier this year detected an “extraordinary spike in billing” for COVID-19-related tests from a Bensenville-based laboratory called Advanced Diagnostic Solutions Inc, which was incorporated under Syed’s name.
From Jan. 29 to March 13, a period of just 38 days, Advanced Diagnostic Solutions billed approximately 29,411 claims to the Medicare program, with payment of approximately $6.2 million, according to the complaint.
Over 97% of the “patients” Syed’s lab billed for live outside Illinois, including in New York, California, Florida, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Hawaii, the complaint stated. Many of those interviewed by law enforcement said they had never been tested for COVID, never sought such tests and never heard of Advanced Diagnostic Solutions.
Syed’s company submitted one bill to Medicare for $323, claiming to have performed tests for a patient identified as “JC” in January, the complaint stated. On Feb. 7, JC, who lives in Arkansas, told agents they “had never had their mouth or nose swabbed” and there was “no way in this world” they had received any COVID-19 tests from Syed’s company, according to the complaint.
Agents tracked the company’s bank transactions to a Chase branch on West Peterson Avenue, near Syed’s apartment, according to the complaint. After Syed was arrested on May 24, he told agents he was being directed to make the transactions by someone he knew as “Afroz,” who had promised to pay him $50,000 to $70,000 for fronting his name on the company and acting as signatory for the bank accounts, the complaint stated.
“Syed claimed he did not know who performed the billing or purchases lab supplies for Advanced Diagnostic Solutions,” the charges stated. “Syed stated his conduct was wrong at the time, it was easy money, and yet he engaged in the conduct anyway.”
The charges were the latest court action to stem from a wave of similar fraud schemes, mostly taking advantage of government programs to ease costs for consumers for pandemic-related testing, including a recent effort by the Biden administration to provide free at-home test kits to anyone by having the providers directly bill Medicare.
Court records show federal investigators have recently seized more than $60 million in bank accounts around the Chicago area tied to companies engaged in similar schemes as Advanced Diagnostic Solutions.
Last year, federal authorities filed warrants to seize $43 million in fraudulent Medicare payments for test kits billed by a shell company called SK Diagnostics, which was headquartered in an empty store front on North Cicero Avenue, court records show.
Another warrant earlier this year sought to hold $5.1 million in Medicare payments to a company called State Scientific, which like Syed’s company had billed a massive amount of tests in a very short time period, court records show.
On June 5, 2023, law enforcement went to State Scientific’s so-called headquarters in the 1500 block of North Mannheim Road in Stone Park and found that it was actually a restaurant, court records show.
“Immediately next to the restaurant was a vacant area with a sign that read, ‘For Rent,” with no apparent presence of State Scientific,” the seizure warrant stated.
And last month, Baqar Hussain Razv Syed, who is not related to Fasiur Syed, pleaded guilty in Chicago’s federal court to being the front man for a fraud involving Schaumburg-based Luna Labs, which in one three-month period in 2023 billed Medicare for more than $14 million in fraudulent tests, court records show.
Baqar Syed’s plea agreement with prosecutors stated his co-schemers, who have not been charged, agreed to pay him $10,000 a month for his services.
He is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly on July 18.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
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