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Former City Official Gets 1 Year, 1 Day In Prison

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Dec 13, 2006 2:40 pm US/Central

Former City Official Gets 1 Year, 1 Day In Prison

Daniel Katalinic Pleaded Guilty, Helped Authorities

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CHICAGO (AP) ― A former Chicago official who admitted his role in hiring fraud and helped federal prosecutors in an investigation of patronage abuses at City Hall was sentenced Wednesday to a year and a day in prison.

Daniel Katalinic, 55, a former deputy commissioner of streets and sanitation, could have gone to prison for as much as 20 years for mail fraud but got a break because he became a key federal witness.

Prosecutors have said interviews were rigged and documents were falsified to hide that city officials were violating decades-old court orders barring political hiring for most city jobs.

"This business of corruption in this city and other cities -- Chicago has been singled out -- has to stop," said U.S. District Judge David H. Coar.

In pleading guilty last year, Katalinic admitted using fraud to cover up violations of a court order banning the use of most city jobs to reward political workers.

Coar also said he was outraged that after helping prosecutors with their investigation, Katalinic and his wife and children became the target of community harassment that ranged from phone calls in the middle of the night to slashed tires and graffiti.

Coar said he could understand if Katalinic lost friends because he had violated the law.

"But for people to turn against him or any other person because they owned up to a crime and breached this unwritten code of silence is shameful -- absolutely shameful," Coar said.

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