Investigators take another look at Huels

Eight years after one City Hall scandal ended the political career of powerful Ald. Patrick Huels, another one has federal investigators re-examining the power Huels wielded over the Hired Truck Program while in the City Council.

Huels represented Chicago's powerful 11th Ward, the home turf of Mayor Daley's family, but he resigned in 1997 after the Chicago Sun-Times disclosed he got a $1.25 million loan from a friend, Michael Tadin, whose trucking companies dominated the Hired Truck Program. The program is at the center of the current cloud over City Hall.

It appears Huels helped companies get into the Hired Truck Program while he was alderman, according to court records and sources.

City Clerk Jim Laski went to see "an influential alderman" on behalf of a boyhood friend who wanted to get one truck into the Hired Truck Program, according to criminal charges unsealed earlier this month against Laski. Though federal prosecutors didn't identify the "influential alderman," sources familiar with the investigation said it was Huels.

A few weeks before Huels resigned in late 1997, the trucking company owned by Laski's friend got into the Hired Truck Program, city records show. As a result, Laski started getting a $500-a-month kickback from his friend, Mick Jones, who owned Get Plowed Inc., according to a sworn statement filed in Laski's case.

Sources said that as the 11th Ward alderman, Huels was known as the man to see to get into the Hired Truck Program, a program that has been dominated for decades by trucking companies from the 11th Ward.

Huels, 56, could not be reached for comment for this story, despite repeated calls.

According to his friend and business partner, Tadin, Huels never had anything to do with the Hired Truck Program.

"He never played no part in no hired trucks," Tadin said last week. "That would be news to me."

Nor, Tadin said, did Huels ever personally help him with the Hired Truck Program.

"Pat Huels never put no trucks to work for me, is what I'm telling you," Tadin said.

Tadin's loan nearly doubled the personal debt of Huels and his wife, Jacqueline. They ended up filing for bankruptcy in 2002, five years after he quit the City Council. Their debts hit $2.6 million -- nearly half of that owed to Tadin.

Huels has yet to fully repay the loan, Tadin said last week, explaining a $50,000 lien Tadin has on the Huels' condo in Bridgeport. Huels and his wife bought the condo in 2004.

Huels went to Tadin, a friend since childhood, to get a personal loan in 1996 for SDI Security Inc., the company owned in part by Huels and his brother John Jr., a Chicago police officer. Tadin said he also is a shareholder of SDI, which has provided security at Sox Park in the 11th Ward.

The loan was to cover federal-withholding taxes that SDI had not paid on behalf of its workers. But the loan was personally guaranteed by Huels, records show.

The Sun-Times exposed the unusual loan between the alderman and a contractor who had received millions of dollars in work from the city, and the fact that Huels had failed to disclose it on his economic-interest statement. Huels had previously helped Tadin win a $1.1 million subsidy from the city for a trucking headquarters in the old Stockyards district.

"As a result of the controversy generated by this loan, Patrick resigned as alderman and began devoting full-time to the [SDI] corporation and a consulting practice," according to Huels' bankruptcy records.

Huels is now president of SDI. The company paid him $225,000 a year, bankruptcy records show. Huels "is the primary 'rainmaker' with respect to new accounts and the retention of existing accounts," according to court records.

SDI has been the main source of income for the former alderman, but he has had other jobs since he left the City Council, including $38,000 he earned in 2001 from Victor Cacciatore & Sons, bankruptcy records show. Cacciatore is a high-powered lawyer with real estate and banking interests.

As an alderman, Huels enjoyed the high life, including fine suits, Italian ties and silk boxer shorts. His bankruptcy file reflects his tastes: He owed hundreds of thousands of dollars on numerous credit cards, including debts at Brooks Brothers, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Saks. The Huels owed more than $10,000 to Marshall Field's.

Between his job at SDI and his wife's job as director of the Arie Crown Theatre at McCormick Place, the couple had a monthly income of $31,419.52 in 2002, court records show. Huels' wife has retired and gets a pension.

Their monthly expenses were $18,262, including $1,700 a month to lease two Lexus cars.

Their other reported debts included:

*$4,962.44 to Best Buy.

*$14,851.38 to the credit union for city employees.

*$38,599.15 to Mercedes-Benz.

*$45,000 to the IRS.

*$540,671.25 to Huels' own company, SDI.

Huels and his wife agreed to a five-year plan -- which is still in effect -- to pay their debts, records show. But not all their debts will be paid in full. Credit card companies and other unsecured creditors can expect Huels and his wife to pay just 25 percent of the money they owed, court records show.

tnovak@suntimes.com swarmbir@suntimes.com