City Clerk James Laski demanded cash bribes to steer city trucking business to a lifelong friend, then coached and cajoled him to lie to investigators in a series of meetings captured on surveillance tapes, federal prosecutors charged Friday.
Laski, charged with bribery and obstruction of justice, was unaware that he was recorded but appeared suspicious of those around him, even as he tried to rally them in the face of a grand jury investigation last fall, according to court records.
“I know you’re not setting me up,” Laski told the friend, who in fact was letting authorities eavesdrop, according to the criminal complaint. Later in the conversation, Laski allegedly told the friend, “If something happens to me where are we all at?”
Laski, who is second to the mayor among the city’s elected officials, became the 39th defendant and the highest-ranking public official charged in the ongoing investigation of City Hall corruption.
“You can’t have a person, the city clerk working at City Hall shaking people down for bribes,” U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald said. “What’s alleged … is naked bribery–`Pay me money, and you’ll get business.'”
Laski is accused of taking bribes for about six years, stopping only when federal authorities made their first arrest in the investigation of the city’s Hired Truck Program in January 2004. The bribes totaled between $35,000 and $40,000, according to a source familiar with the investigation.
Although local politicians already are jockeying to replace him, the 52-year-old Laski said he has no immediate plans to resign his $133,500-a-year job, which he was first elected to in 1995. Laski was released after posting $10,000 bond and agreeing to wear an electronic monitoring device.
“I’ll be at work next week,” he told reporters as he left the federal courthouse downtown with his lawyer, Anthony Pinelli.
Pinelli said Laski denies asking for money or taking it in exchange for promising to get work in the Hired Truck Program for Get Plowed Inc., run by his friend Michael “Mick” Jones and Jones’ wife.
But Pinelli said Laski has not decided his next legal move. “We are going to make a decision about what’s best for his children, his wife, his mother and his office,” Pinelli said.
Also charged Friday was Salvatore “Sam” Gammicchia Sr., a coordinator of Laski’s campaign workers and a foreman of Cook County ironworkers.
Gammicchia, 62, was arrested at his home on the Southwest Side and charged with obstruction of justice. He is accused of urging Jones to “get your stories straight … if you incriminate Jim … everything goes down the tubes.”
Authorities said Gammicchia warned Jones not to cooperate with federal agents. “If you’re wired or not wired, that’s your business,” Gammicchia allegedly told Jones. “The only thing, if I go to jail, you’d have to go under witness protection.”
“That’s going to draw heat every time,” Fitzgerald said of the alleged cover-up efforts.
Gammicchia, who was paid $69,888 a year, was placed on unpaid leave Friday, county spokeswoman Caryn Stancik said.
The court records do not identify Jones and his wife, Traci, as cooperating witnesses. But a source familiar with the probe said the couple wore recording devices, including a hidden camera during one meeting in Laski’s home.
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Federal authorities interviewed Laski in August, and he denied taking money to help Jones’ trucking company get work.
Shortly after that, according to prosecutors, Jones told Laski that authorities had contacted him. The clerk arranged for Jones to get $5,000 to pay for a lawyer, prosecutors said.
But Laski was beginning to have his doubts about Jones, who authorities say had agreed to cooperate. On Sept. 18, according to court records, Laski noticed something in Jones’ pocket and patted him down but apparently missed the hidden recording device.
Laski, believing that Traci Jones was going to testify before a federal jury about the bribes, allegedly suggested Oct. 12 that she “might be too ill” to appear before the grand jury, according to court records.
“On the [secret] video recording of the meeting, Laski appears to wink when mentioning [Traci Jones’] health,” according to court records.
Later, Mick Jones and Gammicchia allegedly discussed what Jones’ wife would tell the grand jury. Jones allegedly said she would testify that the money given to Laski was political donations, not bribe money, but only if they knew that Laski would stick with the same story.
According to court papers, Jones suggested that the men–all from White Sox territory on the city’s South Side–come up with a signal if Laski supports the plan. Laski should call Jones and simply say, “Go Cubs.”
Soon after, according to court papers, Laski called Jones.
“Hello,” Jones said.
“Yeah, go Cubs,” Laski said.
“All right buddy,” Jones said.
“Yeah, go Cubs,” Laski said a second time, according to court records.
Jones went to Laski around 1997 to ask for his help in getting trucks into the program, and Laski in turn sought assistance for Get Plowed from an unnamed “influential alderman,” according to court records.
A source close to the investigation said the alderman was Patrick Huels from Mayor Richard Daley’s native 11th Ward. Huels was Daley’s City Council floor leader until he resigned in October 1997 after admitting he borrowed $1.25 million from another Daley friend and city contractor, Mike Tadin.
Huels did not return a telephone call for comment.
The firm then began getting city business, and Laski is accused of getting $500 a month from Jones.
Jones told authorities he wanted to expand his firm’s business with the city in 2000, and Laski allegedly told him that he interceded on his behalf with officials in the mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Daley’s intergovernmental affairs director until December 2000 was Victor Reyes, who heads the pro-Daley Hispanic Democratic Organization. A top aide to Reyes at the time was Robert Sorich, who is facing charges that he helped rig city personnel decisions to get jobs and promotions for political campaign workers.
Donald Tomczak, a former Water Management Department official convicted in the corruption probe, has told prosecutors that Laski lobbied him to give city business to Jones’ company.
In 2001, Hired Truck work for Get Plowed increased and Jones’ payments to Laski jumped to $1,000 a month, Fitzgerald said.
A lifelong resident of a working-class neighborhood near Midway Airport, Laski was appointed to the City Council by Daley in 1990.
But Laski repeatedly defied Daley, including opposing a mayoral proposal to increase property taxes.
Still, he was elected clerk in 1995 and twice won re-election.
The last clerk elected before Laski, Walter Kozubowski, quit after he was found guilty of corruption charges in 1993.
Daley said in a statement that Laski “was elected by the people of this city, and he is accountable to them. It will be up to him to determine how he should proceed.”
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EXCERPTS FROM TAPES
Prosecutors say a witness cooperating with the government recorded a conversation on Oct. 13 in which he asked Salvatore Gammicchia, an associate of City Clerk James Laski, if Laski agreed with a plan to lie to a grand jury.
Witness: “We gotta hear from Jim that the plan is OK. … We have to know he’s on board with this.”
Gammicchia: “Well, you know him, he won’t say nothing. He’s afraid of his own shadow.”
Witness: “He doesn’t have to say it all. All he has to–call me up and say this, `Go Cubs.’ And we’ll know that it’s OK.”
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Thirty minutes later, the witness received a call on his cell phone.
Witness: “Hello.”
Laski: “Yeah, go Cubs.”
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Witness: “All right, buddy.”
Laski: “Yeah, go Cubs.”
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Prosecutors say that when the cooperating witness and Laski met on Sept. 18, Laski spoke as he patted down the witness to make sure he was not wearing a wire.
Laski: “[Individual B] laughs at me when I do this, this and this.”
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Laski didn’t find the wire, and the two talked for some time.
Excerpts of Laski’s comments:
“Do you think when I sat down for three hours [with prosecutors], I didn’t lie?”
“Everybody in the inner circle is committed to helping everybody.”
“I’m telling you I didn’t take anything, OK? So, that’s my position, OK? Because if [City Worker 2] says [he/she] gave me money and they could prove that, yeah, I’m going to jail. OK, that’s the bottom line. … Do I get Christmas gifts and birthday gifts, yeah, absolutely, yeah. … And my position right now is I’ll do anything … to help the inner circle, but I, I can’t frickin’ help somebody if I’m gonna get … it stuck to me.”
Source: Federal criminal complaints unsealed Friday.
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