As the first political casualty of Operation Silver Shovel prepares to admit to taking dozens of illegal payoffs, another figure is emerging as a vital link between government mole John Christopher and many of the elected officials who have been questioned by the FBI.
Ald. Ambrosio Medrano (25th) will plead guilty, possibily as soon as Wednesday when federal authorities announce the charges against him, to illegally accepting money from Christopher. Medrano is expected to issue an apology to his constituents, sources said Tuesday.
In other developments:
– Sources said another public official also might be charged Wednesday.
– Federal prosecutors will reveal Wednesday that Christopher signed a plea agreement in which he admitted to charges of bank fraud in relation to the now-defunct Cosmopolitan Bank scandal. Christopher could face a possible prison term under federal sentencing guidelines, sources said.
– Cicero attorneys said that Gerald Resnick, a longtime town official, also is under investigation.
– The Illinois secretary of state’s office fired Carl Catuara, a Christopher associate who ran a West Side driver’s license facility. Catuara also has been questioned in connection with the investigation.
With the repercussions of Operation Silver Shovel just beginning to be felt, a key behind-the-scenes player appears to be James Blassingame, a longtime associate of Metropolitan Water Reclamation District Commissioner Joseph Gardner, who was interviewed Friday by the FBI as the operation became public knowledge.
Blassingame served as the middleman between Christopher and city and water reclamation district politicians, who were apparently offered bribes to help steer contracts and permits to Christopher.
Sources say at least six aldermen, one former alderman and two officials of the water reclamation district are targets of the wide-ranging investigation, which apparently involves not only public corruption but also organized crime, money laundering and drug dealing.
Blassingame holds no public office, but he was usually somewhere to be found in the gray nondescript offices of the water reclamation district at 100 E. Erie St.
Blassingame, a forty-ish man about 5 feet 8 inches tall, has been a friend and associate of Gardner’s since at least the beginning of the Harold Washington mayoral campaign in the early 1980s, according to former and current political associates.
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Blassingame worked for the city during the Washington administration in a number of jobs but mainly he was known as somebody who knew everybody.
“He was (Gardner’s) political operative,” said a former associate. “He knew everybody in the African-American community who was involved in politics.”
With Gardner’s election to the water reclamation district board in 1988, Blassingame became a fixture around the commissioner’s second-floor offices at the district’s headquarters.
“He’s always hanging around the district,” said one commissioner. “He’s the middleman. He’s a sharpie.”
Like several aldermen, district President Thomas Fuller, who was interviewed Friday by the FBI in his office, said that Blassingame was the man who introduced him to Christopher about four years ago.
Campaign-contribution records provide a glimpse of the tangled nature of Blassingame’s relationship with local politicians, serving sometimes as a contributor, sometimes as a recipient of loans and sometimes as a political consultant.
Records indicate that last May 18, Blassingame contributed $4,000 to Fuller’s campaign fund, a sum that Fuller said was not a donation but repayment of a loan. Fuller produced a $4,000 check to Blassingame dated May 5 and marked “Loan” to back that assertion.
Blassingame had previously donated another $450 to Fuller’s campaign.
Records show Blassingame also donated $500 to Democrat state Rep. Calvin Giles’ campaign fund in 1993. Giles is the nephew of Ald. Percy Giles (37th). Records of the alderman’s charity, the 37th Ward Improvement Fund, were subpoenaed Monday as part of the federal investigation.
Blassingame donated $500 to Gardner’s campaign fund in early 1995, when Gardner was running in the Democratic mayoral primary. Blassingame also was paid $1,000 as a consultant to Gardner’s campaign in early 1994.
Most mysterious is Blassingame’s whereabouts since Christopher’s role as a government mole surfaced. One close associate said he has not been heard from since Sunday evening.
“You’re about the 20th person to ask me where he is,” the associate said.
Blassingame filed an affidavit as recently as last November to certify that he still lived in a Forest Park apartment so that his name would not be stricken from voting rolls. But a visit to the apartment complex revealed that he has moved out. There also is no trace of him at another address listed for him on the West Side.
His link with Gardner and Fuller has thrown the normally low-profile water reclamation district into the spotlight of public scrutiny.
In addtion to interviewing Fuller and Gardner on Friday, the FBI took records of contracts involving firms linked to Christopher. On Monday, district officials were served with a grand jury subpoena to produce a laundry list of records dating back to 1988, most of them involving the district’s dealings with Marlboro Trucking Co., one of Christopher’s companies.
At an agency that many people cannot even identify–the district treats sewage for most of Cook County and is building the massive Deep Tunnel pollution- and flood-control project–this kind of attention has left many staffers shaken and stunned.
One district employee recalled with wonder Tuesday that FBI agents wore gloves as they picked through the files.
“I’ll never forget that as long as I live,” he said. “They were white cotton gloves, like pallbearer gloves.”
Wednesday’s press conference by U.S. Atty. James Burns is expected to focus on charges that came from three hours of taped conversations between Christopher and Medrano.
“He expects to be charged, and if so will have a brief statement,” said Jeffrey Steinback, Medrano’s attorney.
The alderman, the senior member of the City Council’s Hispanic bloc, allegedly traded influence for more than two dozen payments over an eight-month period totaling more than $10,000.
Aldermen Jesse Evans (21st) and Allan Streeter (17th) and former Ald. Lawrence Bloom (5th) have acknowleged contact with federal agents.
In Cicero, Resnick was questioned last week by FBI agents at his home about his dealings with Christopher and others, according to Cicero attorneys.
Last summer, the west suburban town hired Polmex Construction Co. for a major overhaul of the city’s aging water and sewer lines. Polmex is run by Marco Morales, who pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that he sold Christopher $25,000 worth of cocaine.