From doing time to punching city time clocks
He served six months in a work-release program and another year on probation. Then, the convicted thief ￯﾿ﾽ Bruno F. Roti ￯﾿ﾽ went back to work for the city, this time as a foreman in the Water Department, with a 19 percent raise.
How did Roti, the only son of the late Ald. Fred B. Roti, get that second chance? ￯﾿ﾽI￯﾿ﾽd rather not say,￯﾿ﾽ he said.
His cousin Joseph H. Thome had similar good fortune. Thome was a city asphalt helper when he was caught with $211,680 in fake $20 bills. He pleaded guilty to federal charges and went to prison for 18 months.
When Thome finished his sentence, he went back to work for the city as an asphalt helper on road projects.
Thome and Roti were both convicted more than 20 years ago. They still work for the city.
City officials won￯﾿ﾽt say how many ex-cons are on the payroll. But a Sun-Times investigation found other convicted felons also working for the city. Some of them committed crimes before they got hired, others while on the city payroll.
For years, the city had an unwritten policy not to hire convicted felons. It dropped that policy earlier this year, after a Sun-Times reporter asked about the criminal records of city employees.
￯﾿ﾽIf you had a record, you could be disqualified￯﾿ﾽ from getting a city job, Jose Cerda III, the mayor￯﾿ﾽs chief of policy, said in January as officials announced they would hire some ex-cons. ￯﾿ﾽAnd usually that was the case.￯﾿ﾽ
It wasn￯﾿ﾽt for Roti or Thome.
Today, Roti, 51, is a general foreman of machinists for the city￯﾿ﾽs Department of Fleet Management, paid $72,113 a year. Roti got his first city job, in the police motor pool, in 1973. His father was an alderman. Seven years later, Bruno Roti was among 15 people indicted in the largest financial scandal in Chicago Police Department history. Roti admitted having an auto-repair shop submit bills for $10,000 in work supposedly done on police cars but actually done on his 1972 Chevrolet Vega.
On leave ￯﾿ﾽ in prison
His cousin Thome, 47, is an asphalt foreman today, supervising paving crews, paid $60,112. Thome got his first city job in 1976 and was an asphalt helper on a paving crew in 1984 when he and another man were arrested in Chinatown by the Secret Service. Federal agents stopped their car. On the back seat was a suitcase filled with the bogus twenties.
Thome pleaded guilty and went to federal prison for 18 months, taking a leave of absence from his city job for ￯﾿ﾽpersonal business.￯﾿ﾽ