As part of the series “Culture of Corruption,” the Tribune has compiled a list of roughly 200 convicted, indicted or generally notorious public officials from Illinois’ long and infamous political history. We’re calling it “The Dishonor Roll.” On this page you can read about politicians who served in Cook County government.
This list isn’t meant to be exhaustive, and the Tribune will be updating it as warranted. “The Dishonor Roll” draws heavily from the vast archives of the Tribune, including photography and pages from the newspaper on the days these public officials made headlines.
Read more of “The Dishonor Roll” below:
- Federal officials
- Statewide officials
- General Assembly
- Downstate and suburban officials
- Judges
- Chicago officials
Edward Barrett
A former state treasurer, state auditor, secretary of state and Cook County clerk, Edward Barrett was one of the most successful Illinois politicians in the 20th century. Not allowed to campaign while a sergeant stationed at Great Lakes Naval Training Center, he nonetheless was elected secretary of state — the only Democrat to win a major state office in 1944 — and was discharged from the service to be sworn in. Barrett might have become governor in 1952 except for opposition from Adlai E. Stevenson II.
The Tribune exclusively identified him in April 1972 as the target of a grand jury inquiry into a voting machine kickback scheme. Barrett denied any wrongdoing and said, “My hands are clean.”
He had been serving as Cook County clerk since 1955 when he was indicted while hospitalized in September 1972, charged with receiving $180,000 in bribes from a Philadelphia firm that sold voting machines to the county and $6,000 from the company that insured the voting machines. He was convicted in March 1973 and sentenced to three years.
William Beavers
William Beavers, the self-described “hog with the big nuts,” was a Chicago cop, alderman and Cook County commissioner. He was convicted of obstructing the Internal Revenue Service and concealing his under-reporting of income and underpayment of taxes on thousands of dollars he converted to personal use from his campaign funds, as well as from his county discretionary spending account.
Between 2006 and 2008, federal authorities said, Beavers wrote 100 checks to himself, totaling about $226,000, from three separate campaign accounts and used a portion of those funds for personal purposes, including gambling. He also used more than $68,000 from a campaign account to boost his city pension, and used his monthly county contingency account, totaling $28,800, for personal purposes without reporting any of these funds as income on his federal tax returns. He was sentenced to six months in prison.
John A. Cooke
Former Clerk of the Circuit Court John A. Cooke was sentenced in 1906 to five years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $2,000 after being found guilty of conspiracy to steal more than $25,000 in public funds while he was clerk of the court. Elected in 1897, he was accused of padding the clerk’s office payroll with “dummy names” and “and other species of grafting.” He was released from prison in 1909 and denied ever personally profiting from any misdeeds.
Matthew Danaher
A close associate of Mayor Richard J. Daley, Matthew Danaher served as administrative assistant to the mayor before being elected alderman of Daley’s ward in 1963, then was elected county court clerk in 1968. He died while awaiting trial in a $400,000 kickback scheme. He was indicted in 1974 on charges that he received the kickbacks between 1961 and 1968 for preferential treatment in obtaining loans, zoning changes and city services.
William N. Erickson
William N. Erickson was eyeing a run for governor when he was indicted with two aides in a payroll scandal in April 1952. They were charged with putting people on the county payroll with knowledge those employees would not work for their pay. Erickson was separately accused of omission of his duties and malfeasance.
All three were cleared during a trial two months later. The judge directed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty when the prosecution completed its arguments that, as the Tribune reported, the men “conspired to defraud the county by putting political loafers on the public payroll.” Prosecutors then dismissed the separate indictment charging Erickson with failure to fulfill his official responsibilities.
Morgan Finley
Morgan Finley, a former clerk of the Cook County Circuit Court, state senator and longtime Democratic power broker, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in 1989 after being convicted of racketeering and attempted extortion. Finley was accused of accepting $25,000 from Michael Raymond, a swindler who was working as an undercover operative for the FBI.
In return for the bribes, prosecutors said Finley, whose office had handled ticket collection, tried to discredit the company that had the ticket contract coveted by Raymond’s company. In all, Raymond ladled out $255,600 in cash, cars, trips and lodging as part of the federal government’s Operation Incubator investigation into City Hall and county corruption.
Floyd Fulle
Floyd Fulle, a former newspaperman and Republican member of the Cook County Board, was convicted in 1975 of extorting $69,000 in payoffs in return for helping win approval of zoning changes by the County Board. He was also charged with failing to report $49,000 on his income taxes and lying to a federal grand jury in denying he had taken the bribes.
He served two years and three months of his five-year sentence. Fulle, who always maintained his innocence, died in 2000.
John A. Linn
A colleague of John Cooke, John A. Linn was convicted of payroll padding in the clerk’s office and stealing from the public. Unlike Cooke, Linn pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy. He had been charged with 25 counts of embezzlement, forgery, larceny and withholding public accounts. He was sentenced to five years in prison.
Ed Rosewell
Former Cook County Treasurer Ed Rosewell’s five-decade political career ended in disgrace when he pleaded guilty to hiring ghost payrollers while he was treasurer. A consummate insider, Rosewell began his political career as a worker in the 24th Ward but was working as a vice president at a local bank when Mayor Richard J. Daley tapped him as the Democratic candidate for county treasurer in 1974. He won that race and was reelected five times.
In 1984 a jury acquitted him of bank fraud charges for allegedly understating his debts from a failed clothing venture in order to qualify for loans from several banks that held substantial county deposits. He resigned as treasurer in 1998 after pleading guilty to charges of placing two state legislators in ghost jobs in the treasurer’s office for which they collected thousands of dollars in pay and benefits for little or no work. He died before he was sentenced.
Martin Tuchow
A three-term Cook County commissioner in the 1970s and ’80s whose power base was the North Side lakefront’s 48th Ward, Martin Tuchow saw his political career end when he was found guilty in 1983 and then sentenced in early 1984 to eight years in federal prison for conspiring to extort payments from builders. Tuchow ultimately served more than 2 1/2 years behind bars.
Interested in exploring the Tribune’s archives further? We’re partnering with Newspapers.com
to offer a 1-month subscription to the Chicago Tribune archives for only 99 cents.
