Sanchez convicted of rigging city hiring/Chicago Tribune Editorial: Who's next?

Sanchez convicted of rigging city hiring
By Jeff Coen and Dan Mihalopoulos
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
March 23, 2009 3:29 PM | 24 Comments
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/03/al-sanchez-corruption-trial.html


Al Sanchez, the former commissioner of the city's Streets and Sanitation Department in the Daley administration, was convicted this afternoon on charges he rigged city hiring by trading jobs for campaign work.

"I just did my job the way I was supposed to do it," Sanchez said as he left the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse after jurors convicted him on four counts of mail fraud and acquitted him on three other mail fraud counts.

Sanchez insisted he was trying to ensure that the city's work force was representative of its diverse population. "I guess it's a federal crime.

"I just don't even think I should be in this position," Sanchez added. "We all had a job to do, and we did it."

Sanchez, 61, is the highest-ranking aide to Mayor Richard Daley to be found guilty in the federal corruption probe of City Hall hiring.

The jury also convicted Aaron Delvalle, Sanchez's former assistant, on a perjury charge for lying to a grand jury about the rigged hiring.

Sanchez's lawyer, Thomas Breen, said he was "a little mystified" by the verdict.

Breen said Sanchez had "fought discrimination, fought racism and fought for his people." He worked 24 hours a day "to earn the people's trust and respect," he said.

Breen said it was "hypocrisy" for city officials higher-ranking than Sanchez to skate by. "No one has had the guts to come forward and take responsibility for it (the hiring system)," he said.

"I don't understand why Al Sanchez has been singled out," Breen told reporters.

One juror, Arlene Kaminski of the western suburbs, said the jury was split when deliberations began, though a majority favored conviction. The jury then went count by count, flipping through their notes to recount testimony, she said.

The jury ended up convicting Sanchez on counts where there were witnesses who were able to testify with specifics.

Kaminski said she was aware of hiring issues in the city as a whole. "It's been going on from way back. It doesn't make it right," she said.

Asked about Breen's argument that city higher-ups should also face scrutiny, Kaminski said, "The buck has got to stop somewhere."

She said she hoped the verdict would send a message to City Hall.

"And I think us saying what we did, it says everybody's aware of what's going on and let's clean it up."

Prosecutors alleged that for more than a decade Sanchez was a leading figure in a pervasive scheme to corrupt city hiring. He and others close to him doled out jobs and promotions in return for campaign work, the government charged.

During closing arguments in the trial, Breen told the jury that Sanchez was interested in public service and getting minorities on the city rolls, so he had to work within the system established by the mayor's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.

Breen said Sanchez had to deal with a system in which politicians gave cushy jobs to whites in the Aviation Department and in the Streets and Sanitation Department's electricity bureau while minorities were stuck chasing rats and cleaning alleys.

Prosecutors dismissed the claim that Sanchez was a pawn by telling jurors the former Daley aide had to be in on hiring fraud for it to be so pervasive in his department, the city's largest with more than 4,000 employees.

Sanchez helped build a powerful political group -- the Hispanic Democratic Organization -- by steering hundreds of jobs to operatives who campaigned for Daley and other politicians.

The cycle perpetuated itself as HDO got its candidates elected and grew in influence, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Manish Shah.








Chicago Tribune Editorial: Who's next?
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
March 24, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0324edit1mar24,0,1961439.story


Another conviction, and another reason for Chicago citizens to ask Mayor Richard Daley why he hasn't cleaned up the corrupt, politics-driven hiring in his administration.

Nearly four years ago, Daley's former patronage chief, Robert Sorich, was found guilty of rigging city jobs and promotions so they went to the politically connected.

On Monday, the one-time head of one of the biggest agencies in city government, the Department of Streets and Sanitation, took the fall. Former Commissioner Al Sanchez was found guilty on four counts of fraud.

Jurors accepted federal prosecutors' powerful argument that the Hispanic Democratic Organization—Sanchez was a big cog there—was basically the farm team for Streets and Sanitation. HDO foot soldiers testified that they joined the group, which campaigned for Daley and his allies, in hopes of landing city jobs.

It worked. And the city paid a price. One worker who was hired to drive a garbage truck despite having no experience said she filled out her application at a tavern. Personnel officials who conducted job interviews said they were instructed not to score the applications of candidates who weren't sponsored. "I'd put it in the garbage," one said.

The hiring system worked for somebody, but it wasn't the residents of Chicago.

Sanchez' attorney, Thomas Breen, painted his client as a devoted public servant who worked within a corrupt system managed by Daley's Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. Though Sanchez worked hard to empower Hispanics, he didn't call the shots when it came to hiring his own workers, Breen said. The "fat cats" were letting Sanchez—"this poor jerk," as Breen put it—take the fall.

You don't have to believe the innocent bystander defense—jurors clearly didn't—to see the truth in that statement. The same day a former personnel director testified that Sanchez picked job candidates from an HDO hiring list before they were interviewed, a court-appointed hiring monitor filed a report complaining that the city continues to obstruct her efforts. That monitor, Noelle Brennan, says insider hiring is still going on in city departments, including Streets and Sanitation. Sanchez quit in 2005.

The mayor responded to Sanchez's conviction with a statement reminding people that the case "was based on allegations from years ago." But Brennan said insider hiring is still going on. She said the city thwarts her efforts to clean it up. She didn't say this years ago. She said it 19 days ago in a report to U.S. District Judge Wayne Andersen. The judge has been too patient with the city.

So, who's next?

"No one has had the guts to come forward and take responsibility" for the hiring system, Breen said after his client was convicted. "I don't understand why Al Sanchez has been singled out."

Prosecutors would no doubt be delighted for Sanchez to open up to them about the corrupt system his attorney railed about in court. With Sanchez's cooperation, the "fat cats" could be held to account.