Zoning investigator admits taking bribes for false inspections

The owners of a North side apartment building wanted to add two illegal units to their property in 2007, but they had to find a way to get it past City Hall.

According to a plea deal in federal court, they got the permit papers they needed — by paying off a City Hall inspector.

A zoning investigator for the city admitted this morning that for years he pocketed bribes in exchange for pushing through inspections, some of which were falsified.

William Wellhausen, 52, of Chicago, said that in 2007, he took an $8,000 bribe as a tradeoff for dummying up a phony inspection report to make it appear a residential building at 1637-39 West Granville had two pre-existing units in its basement.

Wellhausen wrote up a false report and took “creative” photos to make it look as if the units were already there, according to his plea deal.

“For that, I received an envelope of $8,000,” Wellhausen told U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow in court this morning.

Wellhausen’s plea deal says the owners of the building — Dumitru Curescu and Lavinia Curescu — were willing to pay off Wellhausen for his phony work. The bribe was passed from an unnamed individual who was cooperating with the government, according to the plea agreement. The Curescus were also charged by prosecutors.

After writing up the false report, Wellhausen traveled to a gas station at the corner of Touhy and Cicero. He met with the unnamed individual, an expediter who handed him an envelope containing $8,000 in cash. In an earlier conversation caught on tape, Wellhausen can be heard talking about the plot.

“I’m giving him two extra ones that he’s going to build,” Wellhausen told a cooperating individual in the case. “He has nothing. I mean, I’m completely fabricating two other ones.”

Wellhausen also admitted he took bribes in unrelated cases to ignore violations or to expedite permit approval.

Wellhausen is just the latest in a slew of inspectors and businesspeople who were caught up in Operation Crooked Code, a front by the feds to crack down on bribe-taking out of City Hall.

He’s agreed to testify at future trials involving the crooked code investigation, including the Curescus trial.

Wellhausen is named on the clout list that came out in the trial of Mayor Daley’s patronage director, Robert Sorich. Wellhausen got a city job with help from then-Ald. William Banks’ ward organization, according to the list.