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Jan 13, 2006 6:48 pm US/Central
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City Clerk Charged With Bribery
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
Chicago City Clerk James Laski has been released on $10,000 bond after being charged with bribery.
Prosecutors allege that Laski has been involved in trucking payoffs, asking trucking companies for cash in exchange for participating in the city Hired Truck program. He has also been charged with obstruction of justice.
Laski appeared in federal court Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sidney Schenkier and was released on $10,000 bond after agreeing to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet so federal officials can track his whereabouts.
The Hired Truck Program, which cost $38 million at its peak in 2003, was designed to save the taxpayers money by outsourcing hauling work but has been awash in payoffs and other corruption.
An affidavit said prosecutors have two cooperating witnesses against Laski, but neither was identified. One is a trucking company operator and Laski friend, the other a city employee.
"What's alleged in the (criminal complaint against Laski) is naked bribery -- it's 'pay me money and you'll get business," U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said at a news conference Friday.
Fitzgerald said a witness who was cooperating with the government approached Laski in late 1997, and Laski offered to get that witness' trucking business into the Hired Truck program for $500 per month.
Prosecutors alleged the trucking business began participating in the Hired Truck program between 1998 and 2000, and Laski received payoffs, Fitzgerald said. Laski also told the witness he was in touch with an "influential alderman," Fitzgerald said, although he would not identify whom that meant.
In late 2000, prosecutors alleged, Laski increased the amount to $1,000 per month after getting another of the witness' trucks working for the city. In 2001, business for the company in the Hired Truck program picked up, particularly from the city Department of Water Management, Fitzgerald said.
A court affidavit said Laski got work for the trucker by promising a former head of the city water department, Donald Tomczak, that he would hire applicants recommended by Tomczak for jobs in the clerk's office in return for help getting trucks in the program. Fitzgerald said Tomczak has claimed he never sent any applicants to Laski's office.
Tomczak has already pleaded guilty in the investigation.
Many checks were written from a trucking company account, made out to "cash" for over $500 for salt and other supplies, and the kickbacks were believed to have come from those checks, Fitzgerald said.
Those checks, which were written over the course of several months, totaled over $100,000 in value, Fitzgerald said.
"A person occupying the office of city clerk should not be seeking out bribes," Fitzgerald said.
Charged with Laski was Sam Gammicchia, a Cook County employee was accused of pressuring a witness to lie to a grand jury about cash payoffs allegedly made to Chicago's city clerk.
Gammicchia, 62, was arrested Friday by federal agents. The 62-year-old was charged in a criminal complaint with obstruction of justice and freed on $10,000 bond by Schenkier.
Fitzgerald said a cooperating witness was told "that he should keep his mouth shut" about making the payments to Laski, and prosecutors claimed Gammicchia gave that witness $5,000 for that witness to hire an attorney.
Gammicchia was also accused of coaching the witness how to lie, specifically telling that witness to pretend not to remember things and pretend to be ill for grand jury appearances, Fitzgerald said.
The affidavit said Gammicchia advised the witness to deny that there had been any payments to Laski and apparently later said the witness should describe them as campaign donations.
According to the affidavit, the witness secretly made recordings of his conversations with Laski, including one in which Laski admitted he lied to federal prosecutors.
Prosecutors alleged further that the witness was told he "would have to enter the witness protection program" if he was wearing a wire, which the witness took as a threat, Fitzgerald said.
Gammicchia is employed by Cook County as an iron worker.
The affidavit said Gammicchia, in addition to working for the county, has been paid $1,000 a month as a consultant by the Friends of Jim Laski campaign committee.
Laski was calm but shook his head and mouthed the words "no comment" as he rode in an elevator with reporters from Schenkier's court to the U.S. marshal's office to be processed.
Laski was elected city clerk in 1995. His office employs about 120 workers.
Fitzgerald declined to comment on the charges beyond what appeared in the criminal complaint.
(© 2006 CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)