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player ready...The former chief of staff to former Republican House leader Lee Daniels is negotiating a potential plea agreement to federal corruption charges, attorneys for both sides said Wednesday.
Michael Tristano pleaded not guilty after his May indictment on charges that he directed state employees to work on political campaigns and steered $1.3 million in state money to the village of Willow Springs to help developers who put a Republican House candidate on their payroll. U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle struck the scheduled November trial date for Tristano on Wednesday after Assistant U.S. Atty. Manish Shah said prosecutors were working with Tristano’s attorney “to resolve this case short of trial.”
“I think we won’t be needing the trial date,” Shah told the judge.
Norgle set a Nov. 21 hearing for “multiple purposes, which might include a change of plea.”
Neither prosecutors nor Tristano’s attorney would say whether Tristano, who was Daniels’ top political and legislative strategist, is cooperating in the ongoing federal investigation. Daniels has not been charged and has denied that he has done anything wrong.
“It was very optimistic of the prosecutor to suggest we would have a deal,” said Tristano’s lawyer, Jeffrey Steinback. “Because right now we don’t have one.” But Steinback added, “I am hopeful we will.”
Daniels’ attorney, Thomas Breen, said that Tristano’s case should have no effect on Daniels.
“We do not fear anything Mr. Tristano is saying, as long as it’s the absolute truth,” Breen said.
Federal authorities have been investigating for two years how millions of dollars in so-called pork-barrel projects tied to Daniels were spent.
The grants, awarded for special projects deemed priorities by lawmakers for their legislative districts, were handed out during the administrations of former Gov. Jim Edgar and former Gov. George Ryan. In an August 2003 subpoena, investigators sought records on grants sought by Daniels from Jan. 1, 1998, through Sept. 1, 2002.
Tristano was accused of steering $1.3 million in such state money to Willow Springs to help developers building a $40 million downtown project. Prosecutors allege that Tristano forced the developers to put a Downstate GOP House candidate on their payroll even though the candidate was busy campaigning in southern Illinois.
The Willow Springs project, developed by Heritage Renaissance Partners, and its investors included two politically connected businessmen convicted in the ongoing federal Operation Safe Road probe. Both investors, Alan Drazek and Roger Stanley, are on the government’s potential witness list in Ryan’s corruption trial.
Drazek pleaded guilty in 2002 to federal charges that he hid profits from a kickback scheme involving state contracts and Ryan confidants. Stanley, a former state representative, pleaded guilty to charges he paid kickbacks to win state contracts and helped to arrange the employment of the Downstate GOP candidate.
As part of his plea agreement, Stanley told federal prosecutors that he had worked with “Official One” in arranging the pork-barrel grant for Willow Springs.
Daniels stepped down in 2002 after two decades as House Republican leader amid reports of the federal investigation of GOP campaign practices under his leadership.
Prosecutors allege that Tristano, trying to help Republicans fighting for control of the House, dispatched staffers from Daniels’ office to work on numerous hotly contested campaigns while on state time, according to the charges.
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