July 18, 2005

BY MIKE ROBINSON ASSOCIATED PRESS

Two veteran city officials were charged Monday with taking part in an illegal scheme to get around court-ordered restrictions on political patronage hiring and steering jobs to well-connected insiders as federal prosecutors expanded their investigation of City Hall.

The charges represented a distinct widening of the government's 18-month investigation of the city's corruption-plagued Hired Truck Program in which private trucking companies admit they paid bribes and made campaign donations to get millions of dollars worth of city hauling work.

The fresh charges strike into the heart of Chicago government-- the hiring process which has been the focus of a decades-long battle in the courts to curb political patronage abuses.

Robert Sorich and Patrick Slattery, both 42 and residents of the Bridgeport area that has for decades been Mayor Richard M. Daley's family power base, were each charged with one count of mail fraud and released by U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole on $4,500 recognizance bonds.

Federal investigators said in court papers that Slattery and a number of unnamed other officials "routinely manipulated the interview and selection process" and conducted "sham interviews, falsely inflating interview scores and otherwise guaranteeing that certain pre-selected candidates who were favored by top City Hall officials would win employment positions."

Sorich coordinated the process from his post in the department of intergovernmental affairs while Slattery carried it out in the department of streets and sanitation, court papers said.

Top city officials and union leaders used clout to get unqualified job candidates into city jobs while those with equal or better qualifications were turned down, according to court papers. They said one city official drew up color-coded charts showing who had sponsors in high places and another referred to those with powerful patrons as being on "the blessed list."

They got on the list through "association with particular political organizations or unions, contributions of labor to certain political organizations or candidates or other influence," according to 78 pages of court papers that FBI agents and prosecutors filed in the two cases.

One unnamed official quoted in an FBI affidavit said deserving job applicants were sometimes bypassed in favor of "goofballs" who should never have been hired by the city.

Slattery attorney Patrick Blegen told reporters after the hearing that his client was innocent and "we're very much looking forward to contesting these charges in court."

The charges were the first to be filed that had nothing directly to do with the Hired Truck scandal but instead reflected the government's wider inquiry into City Hall corruption.

Federal investigators on April 29 raided City Hall and came away with personnel files from the water department, where officials already have been hit with a racketeering indictment, and the intergovernmental affairs department, where Sorich was a key official for the last 12 years.

Using political campaign work or contributions as a condition of hiring for most city jobs has been barred for the last 35 years under a 1970 court order known as the Shakman Decree.

Before the decree, Democratic ward committeemen commanded armies of precinct workers who would be fired from their city jobs if they failed to turn out the vote at election time. The decree, which was hailed by critics of City Hall a key reform, was designed to give challengers a better chance against the once-mighty Chicago Machine.