Better Government Association

Trial date set in City Hall hiring fraud case

By Todd Lighty - Chicago Tribune
March 31, 2006

A May 10 trial date was set today for four former top officials in the Daley administration charged with helping to rig City Hall hiring in order to reward jobs to the mayor's political allies.

The much-anticipated corruption trial before U.S. District Judge David Coar is expected to last four to six weeks and involve more than 30 witnesses for the government, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Patrick Collins.

"It is the government's desire to go forward," Collins said.

During a hearing this morning in the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, Collins told Coar the defense would get "every scrap" of relevant evidence and materials in the case.

The defendants are Robert Sorich, Mayor Richard Daley's former patronage chief; Timothy McCarthy, who worked in the mayor's office with Sorich; and former Streets and Sanitation Department officials John Sullivan and Patrick Slattery.

All were charged with mail fraud. Sullivan also was charged with lying to federal agents investigating the hiring fraud allegations.

A fifth defendant, former Streets and Sanitation official Daniel Katalinic, pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the government. He secretly recorded conversations with Sorich and admitted to heading a pro-Daley political group whose members were regularly rewarded with city jobs and coveted promotions.

The scheme allegedly was intended to circumvent the decades-old Shakman decree, a federal court order that prohibited the city from basing most hiring and promotion decisions on politics.

Daley has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

tlighty@tribune.com