Chicago Police Supt. Matt Rodriguez denied Tuesday that he had been uncooperative with FBI agents who asked him four years ago to help with the investigation of his close friend, Frank Milito.
But Rodriguez also acknowledged he should have thought twice about his 30-year friendship with Milito. The superintendent announced his resignation after the friendship was disclosed.
“Given the kind of notoriety that attached to it, which I did not expect, it certainly was a friendship that should have been seriously reconsidered on my part,” he said.
Rodriguez made his comments about the meeting with federal authorities during a taping of WLS-Ch. 7’s “News Views” show, which is scheduled to air at 8 a.m. Sunday.
“The interview (with the FBI) has been painted as being uncooperative and that I refused a request,” Rodriguez said. “That is not true.”
The superintendent was responding to questions about a story in Sunday’s Tribune that reported federal agents met with Rodriguez and asked him to keep them apprised of Milito’s activities.
During that meeting, sources said, the agents told Rodriguez that Milito, an Old Town restaurateur and convicted federal felon, may have had a role in the slaying of Charles Merriam, an Amoco Oil Co. executive killed in 1987. The agents also said they were investigating Milito’s investment in an offshore resort and casino owned by reputed organized crime figure Jimmy Cozzo.
One source familiar with the meeting said Rodriguez was not interested in helping. “He said he couldn’t do that, that Milito was a friend and that (the FBI) couldn’t make its (suspicion) stick,” the source said.
But during the taping of the news show, Rodriguez said he never made that statement. “It’s totally untrue,” he said.
Rodriguez said what occurred in the meeting with federal authorities may have been misinterpreted from second-hand accounts.