Truck probe tags city aide

The former No. 2 official in the Chicago Water Department squeezed bribes and campaign contributions from truck company owners who wanted to keep work in the Hired Truck Program, according to federal charges brought Thursday.

Authorities said eight truck company owners and two former city Water Department officials, who acted as “bagmen,” have implicated Donald Tomczak in wrongdoing.

Tomczak is the fifth defendant charged in the last two weeks and the sixth overall in the burgeoning federal probe of Hired Truck. Many of the allegations against Tomczak came from informants who made statements as recently as last week, highlighting the galloping pace the investigation has taken.

The fraud and bribery charges alleged that those who played by making payoffs or campaign contributions to a relative of Tomczak’s won a lion’s share of the lucrative work doled out by the Water Department.

Tomczak’s attorney, Patrick Tuite, blasted the timing of the charges, contending that federal prosecutors were intent on affecting the outcome of a bitter re-election fight by Tomczak’s son, Will County State’s Atty. Jeff Tomczak.

The charges did not identify the politician who received the campaign donations that allegedly flowed from the trucking companies, saying only that the candidate was a relative of Donald Tomczak. The unnamed candidate is not accused of any crimes.

Earlier this year, after questions had been raised about the contributions, Jeff Tomczak said he donated to a Joliet charity $20,000 that his campaign had received from Hired Truck firms.

At a news conference Thursday to announce the charges against Donald Tomczak, U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald termed as “absolute nonsense” Tuite’s allegation that the charges were politically motivated.

“The office doesn’t care who wins in that election,” he said.

As he left a federal courtroom after being released on $25,000 bail secured by his Gold Coast condominium, Tomczak appeared upset that the charges came less than two weeks from the election.

“I know why they did it. I know exactly why they did it,” he said

Tomczak also told reporters he would fight the charges against him in court.

Tomczak, 69, who was arrested at his house in suburban Crest Hill, retired in January after more than 14 years as the Water Department’s first deputy, the power behind the scene, authorities said.

Jeff Tomczak issued a brief statement Thursday supporting his father.

“After 12 years in law enforcement, this is truly one of the hardest days of my life,” the statement said. “My father’s arrest by the U.S. attorney’s office will not affect my love and devotion for him. I continue to stand by my father, my family and my record.”

The charges alleged that one of the eight truck company owners hand-delivered bribes to Donald Tomczak beginning in 1993 and that the payoffs increased to $1,000 every two weeks by 1997.

Authorities charged that Tomczak attempted to obstruct the investigation last month by asking the same truck company owner during a meeting in a coffee shop if he and Gerald J. Wesolowski, a Water Department official charged earlier this month, could count on the owner to keep quiet.

Unknown to Tomczak and Wesolowski, the undisclosed owner had already agreed to cooperate with federal authorities. On Sept. 29, the owner recorded a telephone call as Wesolowski apparently drove in a vehicle with Tomczak. Thursday’s charges identify Wesolowski only as “Official C,” but court records make it clear it is Wesolowski.

When the owner told the two he was looking for advice on what to say in an appearance before the grand jury, Tomczak was heard in the background saying, “We’re not saying a word,” the charges alleged.

Another truck company owner who agreed to cooperate just this Monday told authorities he had been passing bribes to one of Tomczak’s alleged bagmen periodically from 1995 through 2003, according to the charges. The owner said that the payments ranged from $600 to $2,500 at a time and that the charge came to $300 for each truck that worked in Hired Truck, authorities said.

In addition to soliciting campaign contributions on behalf of Tomczak’s relative, one truck company owner told authorities Wesolowski sought a donation on behalf of an undisclosed Chicago aldermanic candidate.

Two of Tomczak’s former alleged bagmen have also agreed to cooperate in the federal probe, one just last week.

Both of the bagmen admitted passing onto Tomczak multiple cash payoffs in envelopes and campaign contributions from truck company owners, typically at Tomczak’s city office at Jardine Water Purification Plant near Navy Pier, the charges alleged.

Began in early 1990s

One official said the payoffs began in the early 1990s and continued through 2003, while the other said he passed on the cash to Tomczak beginning in the mid-1990s through late 2003, authorities said.

The two bagmen acknowledged pocketing cash and gift certificates themselves from truck company owners as part of the scheme, authorities said.

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According to the charges, authorities recovered a handwritten, undated document that one of the former bagmen said is a compilation of campaign solicitations of eight trucking companies on behalf of Candidate A. The record shows $7,500 in combined contributions.

One of the cooperating truck company owners told authorities he was solicited to “volunteer” on behalf of Tomczak’s relative. The owner helped on the campaign, somewhere outside Chicago, on three consecutive weeks and observed city employees pitching in as well, authorities said.

Taped phone calls

Authorities said one of the bagmen seceretly tape-recorded telephone conversations last month with Wesolowski in which he said he had been confronted by law enforcement about cash being passed to Tomczak.

That evening, without advance notice, Wesolowski allegedly called the bagman at home and asked to join him and Tomczak at a fast-food restaurant.

The bagman, who apparently didn’t wear a hidden recorder because he hadn’t told investigators of the unexpected meeting, later told authorities that Tomczak and Wesolowski pressed him for what he had told investigators and specifics concerning the federal inquiry, the charges said.

Federal agents later obtained surveillance videotape from the restaurant showing the three meeting there, authorities said.

Fitzgerald launched a lengthy defense of the timing of the charges, saying that prosecutors would be criticized either way–if the charges were brought before the election or delayed until after.

`We call it as we see it’

“We’re damned if we do, we’re damned if we don’t” Fitzgerald said. “We just call it as we see it, and when the arrest is appropriate, we do it. That’s what we did here. I made that decision.”

Allegations that Donald Tomczak was obstructing justice also provided justification for prosecutors to proceed quickly with the arrest, Fitzgerald contended.

“If people are going around obstructing justice, we’re not going to take two weeks off and let them do that,” Fitzgerald said. “There’s no reason for us to want to advance things because of an election or delay things because of an election. We ignore the election date and do what’s appropriate for the case.”

Authorities said the investigation is continuing and asked anyone with information about corruption in Hired Truck to call the FBI at 312-786-2686.