Witty, acerbic and ever critical, Larry Bloom for 16 years stood as the self-appointed conscience of the Chicago City Council, the leader of a small platoon of independent aldermen who railed against the system and fought for their definition of good government.
His perch from the alderman’s seat representing the south lakefront’s 5th Ward was the highest he ever achieved, although he tried to become Cook County state’s attorney, city treasurer and mayor.
His fall was abrupt and, in many ways, shocking–indicted in July 1997 by a federal grand jury on 14 counts, including bribery, extortion, mail fraud and helping a law client evade unpaid property taxes.
By agreeing to plead guilty to one of those counts Friday, a tax fraud charge, Bloom has become enshrined in a local hall of shame crowded with crooked judges, congressmen, state legislators, governors and a horde of aldermen.
If nothing else, Bloom’s demise adds a new wrinkle to Chicago’s corrupt political legacy: A place so crooked, even the reformers are on the take.
After the indictment, Bloom forcefully denied the allegations and decried a “mugging” at the hands of overzealous prosecutors. Then, almost immediately, he disappeared from public view–while continuing his law practice and privately maintaining his innocence to friends and acquaintances.
Since the indictment, the case has loomed large over his life and changed it, forcing him to sell his $640,000 Hyde Park home to pay defense bills.
On Friday, Bloom emerged briefly in court to plead guilty. He looked older, his salt-and-pepper hair was more salt than pepper, and his quick and clever tongue was in check.
Standing before U.S. District Senior Judge Milton Shadur in the Dirksen Federal Building, Bloom was asked several times if he understood the various rights he was ceding by pleading guilty.
“I’m aware of all those rights,” he said quietly.
After the hearing, Bloom’s wife, Ruth, ran up and hugged and kissed him, and he greeted several friends who had come to provide support. “Thank you all so much for coming,” he said. “It was very nice of you.”
The deal Bloom struck with prosecutors allowed him to plead guilty to only a sliver of the government’s case, admitting that he intentionally misreported $6,000 in cash that he had received from federal mole John Christopher in 1994 as deductible income on a tax return for his realty company.
At the same time, however, the plea agreement included an addendum in which Bloom admitted that, as an alderman, he had pocketed thousands of dollars in bribes from Christopher, an unscrupulous contractor involved in illegal waste dumping.
“He conceded that he was bribed by John Christopher and took official action in return for those bribes,” said U.S. Atty. Scott Lassar after Bloom entered his plea.
Because of who he was, Bloom’s case has had the highest profile in the sweeping federal corruption sting, code-named Silver Shovel, which leapt into the public consciousness in early 1996. It also has had special importance for prosecutors, who have been accused of targeting only minority public officials.
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In the end, both sides walked away with something. Bloom likely will get a short sentence or probation and avoid conviction on all the corruption charges. But prosecutors can notch a conviction, plus Bloom’s admission of bribe-taking.
And no matter how mild his sentence, Bloom will probably lose his law license. Serious felony tax fraud “will traditionally lead to substantial discipline or disbarment,” said James Grogan, senior counsel with the Illinois Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission.
Sentencing for Bloom is set for February.
The plea surprised and saddened some of Bloom’s friends and supporters.
“I really had confidence in him and I believed him when he told me to keep my mind open,” said former Ald. Leon Despres, another well-known independent.
“Those who admired and approved what he did in public life up until then hoped he would be cleared, and it’s very sad that he didn’t (get cleared). I never expected this.”
Rabbi Arnold Wolf of KAM Isaiah Israel Temple, which Bloom attends and where he has served as president, said the former alderman may have withered under a relentless campaign by prosecutors to bag a reformer.
“He is not an evil man but maybe a foolish man, trusting and sometimes careless,” Wolf said. “Certainly he didn’t make anything for himself out of all this. At least some of this is behind him now.”
Though Bloom’s ward contained not only the affluent Hyde Park/University of Chicago community but also many low-income African-American neighborhoods, which accounted for the bulk of the voting population, he achieved heavy vote pluralities in his re-election bids.
Bloom was born on the Northwest Side but spent most of his childhood in Highland Park. In the 1960s he went to law school at the U. of C. and remained in the neighborhood after graduation.
His entree into the City Council came in 1979 when he took on incumbent Ald. Ross Lathrop, who was a fixture of the body’s small independent bloc. But Bloom claimed Lathrop wasn’t independent enough, and the voters agreed.
Soon, Bloom emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of then-Mayor Jane Byrne, and in 1983, Bloom allied himself with Harold Washington’s challenge to Byrne’s re-election. After Washington won, Bloom became one of the few white supporters of Chicago’s first black mayor during the chaotic Council Wars days.
After Washington died and the mantle of power eventually shifted to Richard M. Daley, Bloom returned to his earlier role as the council’s most outspoken voice of liberalism and a mayoral critic. It didn’t last long, however, as Daley maneuvered to co-opt rather than confront his critics.
In Bloom’s final years in office, he more often than not voted to support Daley initiatives.
After losing the treasurer’s race three years ago to Miriam Santos, he focused on the Loop law practice he shared with his now 87-year-old father, Jacob.
But in 1996 his name surfaced in connection with the Silver Shovel sting, and in July of the following year, he was indicted.
Bloom’s associates, who had mounted a legal defense fund for him, had estimated that the costs of the ordeal could have exceeded $500,000.
Late in 1997, Bloom and his wife sold their stately Hyde Park home in the 5800 block of South Harper Avenue and moved about two miles away into a $169,000 18th-floor condominium unit overlooking Lake Michigan.
Despite his recent legal problems, Bloom had remained a leader of sorts in Hyde Park. His son and daughter, who both attended public school, are in college now, so the shift from big house to smaller condominium, while prompted by financial necessity, is no different than other empty nesters’ experiences.
By virtue of serving as vice president of his synagogue before his legal troubles began, Bloom was next in line to become president, and he took that job without any objections, serving through 1997.
“It was really his decision as far as the congregation was concerned. To ask him to step aside would mean people were believing the charges against him and no one would ask him to step aside,” Despres said.
Many Bloom supporters said his guilty plea did nothing to diminish their regard for him.
“Never in their career was anyone so clean,” insisted Bob Kirschner, a former assistant Cook County medical examiner and neighbor of Bloom’s.
That refrain was echoed by Neal Scherberg, a longtime friend, client and frequent donor to Bloom political campaigns.
“My view of him is not changed by this,” Scherberg said. “I still consider him an upright individual whom I would trust as a public official and friend.”