Illinois has always had competition for the unwanted distinction of “most corrupt state.” On a per capita basis, Louisiana has been a strong front-runner and if Washington, D.C., were a state, its level of public corruption would be hard to beat.
The ongoing criminal trial of ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, who has pleaded not guilty and last week began testifying in his own defense, has given Chicagoans a refresher on how the public’s business gets done. The University of Illinois Chicago recently ranked Illinois as the third worst state for bribery, fraud and cronyism in the public sector, and ranked Chicago as the worst metropolitan area.
New Jersey is a perennial Top 10 contender, clocking in at No. 9 by UIC’s recent measurement — and our corrupt public officials certainly have nothing on theirs when it comes to chutzpah.
Witness ex-U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., once a powerful politician in Washington who was convicted last summer in an egregious bribery scheme. As prosecutors noted, Menendez repeatedly sprung into action on behalf of those willing to pay him in cash, gold and luxury goods. “Gold Bar Bob,” as he’s known today, did some of his dirty work in the pay of foreign powers, so it’s no big stretch to brand him disloyal to his country as well as a crook.
Some of the details arising from his case would make good TV — especially if “The Sopranos” were still in production — as when one of his co-defendants delivered a 1-kilo bar of gold to the house. The evidence shows that Menendez then undertook a Google search to determine the bribe’s market value of $60,000.
In exchange for bribes, Menendez interfered with a federal criminal case against a co-defendant, as well as a state investigation into another man who pleaded guilty to handing over a luxury car to win the senator’s support.
Most egregious were Menendez’ efforts to help the government of Egypt, at the same time he was chairing the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In exchange for bribes, Menendez lobbied his fellow senators to overlook Egypt’s record of human rights violations and take various actions to aid the Middle Eastern nation. The jury deliberated for less than one hour per count to deliver its verdict, suggesting this was an open-and-shut case.
The 71-year-old politician faces a stiff penalty at his sentencing hearing on Jan. 29. Federal guidelines call for a prison term of as much as 30 years, and the Probation Department has recommended a sentence of 12 years, a huge reduction from the guidelines considering the audacity of his crimes.
No surprise, he’s pleading for leniency. The real culprit, according to Menendez, is his wife Nadine, who has pleaded not guilty and faces a separate trial next month. In a 47-page memo arguing for a sentence of less than two years, Menendez expresses his “love and devotion” for Nadine while claiming she was sneaking behind his back to cash in gold bars, date an abusive ex-boyfriend and park that ill-gotten luxury car in their garage.
The jury was shown only a single cash-stuffed envelope that had his fingerprint on it, the memo notes, and that one contained “a mere $5,300.” So obviously, ipso facto, Menendez had no clue about the activities of his conniving no-good spouse whom, his memo claims, he remains selflessly devoted to. Attention, Real Housewives, you can’t make this up.
But will Menendez really get off with a slap on the wrist? We’ve seen it happen before, in Chicago, just a few months ago.
Former Chicago Ald. Edward Burke is currently serving a less-than-daunting sentence at a federal prison in Thomson, Illinois, after a federal judge departed from sentencing guidelines that called for 6.5 years and blew off the 10-year recommendation of prosecutors. The 81-year-old Burke, caught red-handed shaking down businesses needing city permits and approvals, got the same two-year penalty that Menendez is seeking.
At Burke’s sentencing, his lawyer went through piles of letters extolling the alderman’s generosity and willingness to perform services without seeking credit or asking anything in return. Menendez has letters too, at least 120 of them, and he makes the same argument.
Never mind that public officials with decades of service wouldn’t have retained their powerful perches for that long if they didn’t help constituents and others. Or that, like Menendez, Burke used his decades in public office to enrich himself, amassing a $30 million fortune while directing city-related business to his private law firm.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently made it more difficult to bring corrupt public officials to justice, ruling that a former mayor of Portage, Indiana, who received kickbacks for steering city contracts to a local truck dealership was accepting a “gratuity” to reward past action rather than a bribe for a future favor. The decision from the court’s conservative majority makes life much harder for the feds, but it still can be overcome by a determined prosecution.
It’s more difficult to overcome judges going easy on public officials who leverage their offices to enrich themselves — and get brought to justice despite the legal barriers to obtaining their convictions. Scanty sentences for these greedy big shots do little to deter crooked behavior in the future. And they do nothing to heal the rift between the public and elected officials who all too often help themselves first and the voters later.
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