Politics

CHICAGO (CBS) ― A jury has found former Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Al Sanchez guilty of four of seven counts of fraud.

Sanchez is accused of taking part in an illegal scheme to dole out coveted city jobs to political foot soliders in exchange for their campaign work with Mayor Richard M. Daley's Hispanic Democratic Organization.

Sanchez, 61, was a coordinator with HDO.

After jurors announced their verdict, the decorated Vietnam veteran said he couldn't understand why.

"And now I'm sitting up here, you know, convicted of crimes, I don't even know what the crime is," Sanchez said. 

Sanchez says he was just doing his job. He's been found guilty on four of seven mail fraud counts, each with a maximum 20-year sentence. 

Sanchez defense attorney Tom Breen said his client had merely been a cog in an organization where the real decisions were made by higher-ups -- but he declined to say if Mayor Daley was among them.

Breen said Sanchez was taking the blame for something that was done throughout the city government, not merely in the department of streets and sanitation.

"This was done every day in every department in the city and he has to wear the jacket for it," Breen said disgustedly.

Breen told the jury, which deliberated for two and a half days, that Sanchez was an up from the ranks worker, who grew up in "Slag Valley" in the shadow of the steel mills and faced serious discrimination as a Mexican-American.

Members of Sanchez's family including his mother were at the courtroom Monday afternoon. He showed no emotion when the verdict was read. But later the city's former "snowman," in charge of plowing Chicago streets, said the verdict will devastate him and his family.

"I mean, if you think about that, I fought for this country. I expected it to be a country that is fair. And I come back and find out it's only fair when they decide it's fair," Sanchez said. 

Daley released a statement Monday afternoon that read, in part: "The jury has reached its decision. I accept their verdict. But, I also believe it's fair to remind people that today's decision was based on allegations from years ago.

"I feel for Al Sanchez and his family today because I knew him to be a hardworking employee, committed to do his best to serve the people of Chicago."

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald hailed the jury's decision.

"He's a perpetrator of a crime," Fitzgerald said. "Where people are, are basically rigging the system, that is a crime. That is a felony."

"Maybe the most qualified person should get a job. That's not crazy. But it's a world we're entitled to live in. And the taxpayers are entitled to have that system be in place," Fitzgerald added.

Sanchez was found not guilty on three other counts.

The two-week trial marked the latest round in the long-running legal battle over the custom of political patronage in Chicago that calls for reserving city jobs for those who get out the vote.

On trial with him was his former top aide, Aaron Del Valle, a onetime 25th Ward aldermanic candidate and Chicago cop who is accused of lying to a grand jury about his role. Del Valle was found guilty of perjury for lying to the FBI.

Sanchez ran the Streets and Sanitation Department from 1999 to 2005, and became familiar to Chicagoans as the face of snow removal and garbage pickup for many years. He says it was Mayor Richard M. Daley's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs that made hiring decisions.

As he left court, the jury foreman told CBS 2 jurors decided they would not immediately explain their split verdict.

CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery, the Associated Press and the STNG Wire contributed to this report.

(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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