Charged 2022

Daniel Solis

25th ward

The former Chicago alderman, who turned government mole to help federal investigators build cases against Ald. Edward Burke and ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan, was charged with a bribery count in April 2022. The bare-bones, one-count criminal information alleged Solis, who abruptly retired as 25th Ward alderman in 2018 before his cooperation with the FBI was revealed, corruptly solicited campaign donations from an unidentified real estate developer in exchange for zoning changes in 2015, when Solis was head of the City Council Zoning Committee. Solis has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office, which has agreed to drop bribery charges against him in three years if he continues to cooperate.

Pleaded not guilty 2021

Carrie Austin

34th ward

Austin and her top aide were indicted in June 2021 on charges they shepherded a new real estate development through the City Hall approval process beginning in 2016 and were given home improvement perks from a developer seeking to influence them. They have pleaded not guilty. Lawyers for Austin, who already announced she wouldn’t run for reelection, said in a court filing in November 2022 she is medically unfit for trial and would retire from the City Council on March 1, 2023, a week after the City Council election.

Convicted 2023

Edward Burke

14th ward

After his office was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Nov. 29, 2018, federal prosecutors charged Burke in January 2019 with attempted extortion. A 14-count indictment on May 30, 2019, expanded the corruption allegations against the 75-year-old, accusing him of abusing his City Hall clout to extort private legal work from companies and individuals doing business with the city. In his 50 years in politics, the 75-year-old Southwest Side alderman had been under federal scrutiny several times before, but never previously convicted or indicted. In addition to racketeering, Burke was also charged with federal program bribery, attempted extortion, conspiracy to commit extortion and using interstate commerce to facilitate an unlawful activity. He was acquitted on one count of conspiracy to commit extortion related to the redevelopment of a Burger King.

Pleaded guilty 2019

Willie Cochran

20th ward

Cochran was sentenced to one year in prison by U.S. District Judge Jorge Alonso on June 24, 2019, for using his ward charity fund like his personal piggy bank, including to pay for gambling trips, fancy meals and accessories for his Mercedes. Federal prosecutors dropped 14 of the 15 counts against Cochran, including the most serious charges alleging the alderman shook down businessmen in exchange for his supports on deals in his 20th Ward, after he pleaded guilty in March 2019. A former Chicago police officer elected to the City Council in 2007, Cochran was indicted in December 2016 on an array of charges, including extortion and bribery.

Pleaded guilty 2010

Isaac “Ike” Carothers

29th ward

To bribery and tax charges in a zoning case. His alderman father, William, was convicted 27 years earlier.

Pleaded guilty 2008

Arenda Troutman

20th ward

To fraud after admitting she solicited donations from developers seeking to do business.

Convicted 1999

Percy Giles

37th ward

Pocketing $10,000 in bribes from a government mole and extorting an additional $81,200.

Convicted 1998

Virgil Jones

15th ward

Pocketing two payoffs totaling $7,000.

Pleaded guilty 1998

Lawrence Bloom

5th ward

To filing a false income tax return and admitted pocketing $14,000 from an FBI mole.

Convicted 1998

John Madrzyk

13th ward

Sentenced to 41 months in prison in September 1998 as part of the federal probe of ghost-payrolling, dubbed Operation Haunted Hall because many of the targets were on payrolls at City Hall. As chairman of the council’s Special Events Committee, Madrzyk paid his daughter-in-law $33,764 over a 14-month period even though she did no work for the committee. Madrzyk also admitted pocketing kickbacks from two other ghost-payrollers.

Sentenced 1997

Jesse Evans

21st ward

Accepting $7,300 in bribes, extorting $10,000 and a new basement floor.

Convicted 1997

Joseph Martinez

31st ward

Accepting pay for three no-work, ghost-payroll jobs at City Hall.

Pleaded guilty 1996

Allan Streeter

17th ward

To taking $37,020 in bribes from a government mole and an undercover FBI agent.

Pleaded guilty 1996

Ambrosio Medrano

25th ward

To taking $31,000 from a mole and placing two associates in no-work jobs on a city committee. Medrano was found guilty in 2013 in a separate corruption scheme.

Convicted 1993

Fred Roti

1st ward

Taking $10,000 to influence a court case and $7,500 to support a ward zoning change.

Pleaded guilty 1989

Marian Humes

8th ward

To taking $6,000 from Hutchinson to help contractors and $5,000 from an FBI mole.

Convicted 1988

Perry Hutchinson

9th ward

In an insurance-fraud scheme. Then, in 1989, he pleaded guilty to taking $42,200 from an FBI mole.

Pleaded guilty 1987

Chester Kuta

31st ward

To income tax evasion, fraud and civil rights violation.

Convicted 1987

Wallace Davis Jr.

27th ward

Accepting a $5,000 bribe, forcing his niece to pay $11,000 in kickbacks and extorting $3,000.

Pleaded guilty 1987

Clifford Kelley

20th ward

To charges that he accepted $36,500 for lucrative city work.

Convicted 1983

Louis Farina

36th ward

Conspiring to extort $7,000 from contractors to help them obtain city building permits.

Convicted 1983

Tyrone Kenner

3rd ward

Accepting $15,500 to help more than a dozen people become sheriff’s deputies or electricians.

Convicted 1983

William Carothers

28th ward

Extorting as much as $32,500 from Bethany Hospital builders to remodel his ward office.

Pleaded guilty 1980

Stanley Zydlo

26th ward

Paying $1,000 to alter two relatives’ test results for a Fire Department physical entrance exam.

Pleaded guilty 1975

Edward Scholl

41st ward

Taking $6,850 in bribes from a contractor to permit zoning changes in his ward.

Pleaded guilty 1975

Donald Swinarski

12th ward

Accepting $7,800 in three bribes to approve zoning changes in his ward.

Convicted 1974

Paul Wigoda

49th ward

Taking a $50,000 bribe in exchange for his support for a zoning change in a nearby ward.

Convicted 1974

Thomas Keane

31st ward

Fraud and conspiracy for aiding a scheme to buy and sell tax-delinquent property at inflated prices.

Convicted 1974

Frank Kuta

23rd ward

Accepting a $1,500 bribe on a zoning case (Preceded Potempa).

Pleaded guilty 1973

Joseph Potempa

23rd ward

Accepting $3,000 for zoning changes and failing to report $9,000 on income tax returns.

Convicted 1973

Casimir Staszcuk

13th ward

Accepting three bribes totaling $9,000 to back zoning changes.

Convicted 1973

Joseph Jambrone

28th ward

Accepting payoffs of $4,000 and $1,000 to support zoning changes.

Pleaded guilty 1972

Fred Hubbard

2nd ward

Embezzling nearly $100,000 from a federally funded jobs program.

Convicted 2022

Patrick Daley Thompson

11th ward

Thompson, the grandson and nephew of Chicago’s two longest-serving mayors, was convicted by a federal jury in February 2022, of two counts of lying to federal regulators about loans he had with the now-shuttered Washington Federal Bank for Savings in his family’s Bridgeport neighborhood. The jury also found Thompson guilty on five counts of filing false tax returns that illegally claimed mortgage interest deductions he never paid. He was sentenced to four months in a federal prison and should be released just before Christmas.

Pleaded guilty 2021

Ricardo Muñoz

22nd ward

Pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering for stealing tens of thousands of dollars from a political campaign fund he controlled and spending it on Los Angeles Kings hockey game tickets, hotel rooms, jewelry, women’s clothing, iPhones, aerial sightseeing trips and skydiving excursions. Muñoz also transferred $16,000 to pay college tuition for an unidentified person, according to the charges. He was sentenced to 13 months in prison.

Pleaded guilty 2013

Sandi Jackson

7th ward

Prosecutors say she was involved in most of her husband’s, Jesse Jackson Jr.’s, illicit spending and did not declare about $600,000 in taxable income. She pleaded guilty to one felony count of filing false U.S. income tax returns.

Convicted 2013

William Beavers

7th ward

Failing to pay taxes on hundreds of thousands of dollars he took out of his campaign fund and used for gambling and other personal expenses.

Pleaded guilty 2008

Ed Vrdolyak

10th ward

Pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit mail fraud but didn’t agree to cooperate with federal authorities in a scheme to collect a $1.5 million fee when Rosalind Franklin University went to sell a Gold Coast property. In 2016, Vrdolyak pleaded not guilty to charges alleging he obstructed an IRS investigation into a secret deal he cut in the 1990s to pocket millions of dollars from the massive tobacco lawsuit settlement without doing any work.

Pleaded guilty 2006

James Laski

23rd ward

For taking nearly $50,000 in bribes to steer city business to trucking companies run by his friends. Laski, a former City Clerk, also told federal investigators he was involved in ghost payrolling while an alderman in the early 1990s.

Convicted 1997

Joseph Kotlarz

35th ward

The former alderman used a public land deal to steal $190,000 from the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority when he was its chief and a state representative. He served a 6-month sentence in the DuPage County Jail, and was sentenced to four years’ probation, 400 hours of community service and ordered to pay $190,000 in restitution.