Suspended 10 days for not talking

BUILDINGS DEPT. | Won't discuss why names appear on list of alleged receivers of gift cards

Two employees of Chicago's scandal-scarred Department of Buildings have been slapped with 10-day suspensions for refusing to explain why their names appeared on a list of city employees who allegedly accepted gift cards from a permit expediter-turned-government witness.

The unidentified employees have been questioned by federal and city investigators.

They refused to answer questions from Buildings Commissioner Richard Monocchio to avoid contradicting their previous statements in the criminal case, officials said.

"We do not believe that either employee accepted a gift in violation of the ethics ordinance.

However, this discipline was necessary to reinforce the message that all department employees are required to cooperate with all inquiries to protect the integrity of the department," said Buildings Department spokesman Bill McCaffrey.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported last month that 20 current and former Buildings Department employees had been asked to explain why their names appeared on the gift list maintained by Catherine Romasanta, a former expediter caught up in the federal investigation known as Operation Crooked Code.

Expediters are paid to help developers and homeowners navigate the sometimes intimidating City Hall bureaucracy and obtain speedy approval of building and zoning permits.

Testifying in the trial that culminated in the conviction of former supervising building inspector Michael Reese, Romasanta described how she passed bribes from developers to Reese and other city inspectors in exchange for city approval of questionable construction plans.

The alleged gift list was entered into the trial record. Buildings Department employees on the list allegedly received "unsolicited payments" of $100 and $200 gift cards from Romasanta.

Of the 20 on the list, 15 are current employees.

Of the 13 questioned, all but one denied receiving any gifts from Romasanta, McCaffrey said.

The only exception was a worker who claimed to have received a pair of $50 gifts from the expediter before 2005.

That was only "a penny" over the limit established by the ethics ordinance and long before the Buildings Department imposed its current no-gift policy, McCaffrey said.

"They have cleared him and his name appears on that list. That makes us question the validity of the list," McCaffrey said.

"There is no independent corroboration that these gifts were ever delivered and there's evidence this list is not valid."