Ald. Isaac Carothers wore wire for a year
INDICTED | Daley ally charged with fraud and bribery despite reported cooperation with feds in probe of officials, developers
One of Mayor Daley's closest allies on the City Council has been wearing a wire and secretly recording "public officials and real estate developers" for more than a year, a City Hall bombshell that was revealed in a federal court document Thursday.
Ald. Isaac "Ike" Carothers (29th) was charged Thursday with fraud and bribery for allegedly accepting $40,000 in home improvements and other gifts from a politically connected developer, but he has been cooperating with the feds since April 2008, according to court papers.
(Al Podgorski/Sun-Times)
1. Fred Hubbard (2nd), 1973
2. Joseph Jambrone (28th), 1973
3. Casimir Staszcuk (13th), 1973
4. Joseph Potempa (23rd), 1973
5. Frank Kuta (23rd), 1974
6. Thomas E. Keane (31st), 1974
7. Paul T. Wigoda (49th), 1974
8. Donald Swinarski (12th), 1975
9. Edward T. Scholl (41st) 1975
10. Stanley Zydlo (26th), 1980
11. William Carothers (28th), 1983
12. Louis P. Farina (36th), 1983
13. Tyrone T. Kenner (3rd), 1983
14. Chester A. Kuta, (31st) 1987
15. Clifford P. Kelley (20th), 1987
16. Wallace Davis Jr. (27th), 1987
17. Perry Hutchinson (9th), 1988
18. Marian Humes (8th), 1989
19. Fred Roti (1st), 1993
20. Ambrosio Medrano (25th), 1996
21. Allan Streeter (17th), 1996
22. Joseph Martinez (31st), 1997
23. Jesse Evans (21st), 1997
24. John Madryzk (13th), 1998
25. Larry Bloom (5th), 1998
26. Virgil Jones (15th), 1999
27. Percy Giles (37th), 1999
28. James Laski (23rd), 2006.
29. Ed Vrdolyak (10th), 2008
30. Arenda Troutman (20th), 2008
A government motion filed in February asked to keep under seal the indictment of the developer -- Calvin Boender -- until May. It was unsealed Thursday.
The document identifies Carothers as "Public Official A" -- with clear identifiers pointing to him, including a reference to one of his family members running for Congress in 2004.
The government filing says Carothers, 54, had been "consensually recording conversations with individuals suspected of engaging in ongoing criminal conduct."
"These recorded conversations include meetings Public Official A has had with other public officials and real estate developers. The government expects Public Official A to continue his cooperation into late May 2009."
There's no indication where Carothers' year of cooperation led.
His lawyer, Larry Beaumont, would not comment on the unsealed document. "We expect we will plead not guilty at the arraignment and look forward to trial," Beaumont said.
It's not clear how many of his colleagues Carothers might have ensnared. He has been somewhat radioactive since the Sun-Times reported last year he was under federal scrutiny. Colleagues have been suspicious he has been wearing a wire, City Hall sources say.
And Carothers was not that popular to begin with because he leapfrogged over more senior colleagues to become Daley's handpicked Police and Fire Committee chairman and lectured those who dared to oppose Daley's tax increases on the City Council floor.
On Thursday, as a result of an FBI and Internal Revenue Service investigation, Carothers was indicted for allegedly accepting improvements to his home in the South Austin neighborhood from Boender, as well as meals and 2005 White Sox playoff tickets.
Carothers allegedly took the perks -- which he didn't disclose -- in exchange for pushing through zoning changes for Galewood Yards, the largest undeveloped tract of land in the city.
The last alderman in recent memory to wear a wire was Allan Streeter (17th), who taped colleagues in the Silver Shovel City Hall corruption investigation. Meanwhile, former Ald. Ambrosio Medrano (25th) was hailed by some as a hero for refusing to wear a wire.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald did not disclose Carothers' cooperation in a news conference Thursday. But it might explain why Carothers wasn't arrested the way another alderman -- Arenda Troutman -- was in 2007.
"We'll make arrests when we think it's appropriate," Fitzgerald said. "We'll allow people to surrender when we think it's appropriate."
Fitzgerald said the Carothers case should send a message to anyone who wants to bribe their way into City Hall access.
Boender sought to redevelop a 50-acre former rail yard and industrial site on the West Side into a residential and commercial neighborhood.
The rezoning meant the property was sold for about $6 million more than would have been realized without the zoning changes, according to federal authorities. Boender allegedly pocketed $3 million from that sale, prosecutors say.
Boender is also accused of making third-party donations to Carothers' aunt, Cook County Circuit Judge Anita Rivkin-Carothers, when she made a run for Congress in 2004.
In the late 1990s, Rivkin-Carothers was attorney for Tina Olison, mother of Baby T -- the child who now lives with Ald. Edward Burke (14th) and his wife, Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke.
Carothers' father, former Ald. William Carothers (28th), went to prison in 1983 for extorting up to $32,500 in remodeling work for his ward office from the builders of Bethany Hospital.
Before the federal investigation of Isaac Carothers was made known last year, he was Daley's most outspoken African-American supporter in the City Council.
He coined the phrase "heavy lifters" to describe aldermen with the guts to support the $276.5 million tax package tied to Daley's 2008 budget and used the phrase to berate colleagues he saw as political cowards.
The speeches and Carothers' role in running a West Side army of city workers who delivered the vote for the mayor's handpicked candidates endeared Carothers to Daley.
Daley chose him to chair the Police and Fire Committee and left him there to preside over Council hearings on the new police superintendent and reform of the Office of Professional Standards -- even after Carothers made a play to become Budget Committee chairman.
On Thursday, Daley issued a carefully worded statement calling the charges against Carothers "sad and surprising news to those of us who have worked with him."
"I have known Ike Carothers for several years and have known him only to be a hardworking, dedicated public servant. It will be up to the courts to determine whether the public trust has been violated," the mayor said.