A who’s who of Chicago political power brokers and the job seekers they sponsored was unveiled Monday by federal prosecutors in the City Hall corruption trial.
The list of more than 5,700 politically connected job applicants became public as a longtime secretary in Mayor Richard Daley’s office testified for federal prosecutors against former Daley patronage chief Robert Sorich.
Although city officials insisted for years that they did not engage in patronage hiring, secretary Patricia Molloy said aides in the mayor’s office kept track of job seekers and their political sponsors, beginning shortly after Daley’s election in 1989 and during much of his 17-year tenure.
The names of the mayor’s three brothers–Michael, John and William Daley–were entered into the database as sponsors of people seeking jobs or promotions, according to court records. Other sponsors on the list include longtime mayoral political strategist Jeremiah Joyce and former top aides Timothy Degnan, Victor Reyes and John Doerrer.
At least two applicants were described as friends of the mayor, and Gov. Rod Blagojevich also was identified as a sponsor of a successful job seeker on the list, which Molloy compiled between 1990 and 1997.
Sorich and three other former Daley administration officials are charged with rigging city hiring and promotions to favor applicants backed by the mayor’s office. Prosecutors say the fraud scheme benefited the mayor’s political organization and was intended to get around a federal court decree restricting patronage hiring.
The hiring of political allies fueled the infamous Chicago Democratic machine for decades, but patronage was supposed to have ended when the city agreed to the Shakman decree more than 20 years ago. Daley has said machine politics play no role in his dominance of local politics.
On Monday, a Daley administration spokeswoman said city officials declined to comment on Molloy’s testimony.
Molloy, who lives in the Daley family’s Bridgeport power base, was secretary to Sorich and co-defendant Timothy McCarthy in the mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
Testifying under a grant of immunity from prosecution, Molloy described how she kept computerized databases and paper files related to hiring at Intergovernmental Affairs.
The names on the lists came from pro-Daley political coordinators who visited Sorich at his City Hall office or called him at work, she said. Molloy said Sorich then relayed that information to her, and she used it to compile a database on a city-issued Compaq laptop.
The 59-page list entered into evidence Monday contained 5,743 names. There were columns for the applicants’ names, race, Social Security numbers, the jobs that they wanted, and their political sponsors. Another column on the list, Molloy said, was used to record when the applicants received a city job.
A James Reilly was listed as “Friend-Mayor” and received a job in January 1990, according to the list.
City records show that Reilly joined the payroll on Jan. 22, 1990. In an interview Monday, he scoffed at the suggestion that he owed his job to political influence, saying he worked his way up from the bottom rung of the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.
“I’ve worked with the mayor for over 25 years and have a longstanding relationship with him,” said Reilly, now the city’s director of administrative hearings.
Daley brothers on list
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William Daley, the Midwest chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Co., appears on the list as a sponsor four times. Michael Daley, partner in the Daley & George law firm, pops up three times. Cook County Commissioner John Daley, who leads the 11th Ward Democratic Organization, was listed as the backer of two applicants, including Paul Ready.
Ready, a $38.25-an-hour city hoisting engineer, said in an interview that he never went to John Daley or Intergovernmental Affairs for help in getting hired. Asked if he knew how his name ended up on the list from Intergovernmental Affairs, Ready said, “I do, but it’s none of your business.”
David Axelrod, a top political consultant to the mayor, appears on the list as the sponsor of David Woods. Axelrod acknowledged that he made a job recommendation for Woods after meeting him during pickup basketball games at a YMCA on North Halsted Street more than 10 years ago.
“Over time, we became friendly, and I learned a little about him,” Axelrod said. “His goal was to become a bricklayer. It was a better-paying job.”
Woods, who was a toll collector on the Chicago Skyway, volunteered to work on campaigns, but Axelrod said he did not care about that.
“I knew he was an African-American and he wanted to get a trades job,” Axelrod said. “That’s a good thing, since some of the trades traditionally have not been open to African-Americans.”
Axelrod said he placed a call to Intergovernmental Affairs for Woods but does not recall whom he spoke to. Woods became a city bricklayer, records show.
Secretary of State Jesse White’s name pops up on the list about two dozen times. Spokesman David Druker said White recalled a couple of the names on the list.
Druker said White did not remember whether he wrote letters to the mayor’s office or placed calls on behalf of job seekers when White was county recorder of deeds.
“He told people that his recommendation would not guarantee them a job,” Druker said. “He would never expect a government agency to do anything unethical or illegal in order to help someone get a job.”
Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said applicant James Haskins wanted to return to work for the city after a stint in Blagojevich’s congressional office, “so the governor was a reference for him.”
Asked who, if anyone, Blagojevich contacted at the city to help Haskins get a city job, Ottenhoff said, “I have no idea.”
Judging by the list, those with the most clout in city hiring during the 1990s included the pro-Daley Hispanic Democratic Organization and the Coalition for Better Government, based on the Northwest Side.
Organizations had clout
Many job applicants were listed as enjoying the support of Reyes, the HDO leader who directed Intergovernmental Affairs from 1995 until 2000. Other high-ranking HDO members, including retired Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Al Sanchez and state Sen. Antonio “Tony” Munoz (D-Chicago), also were listed as sponsors.
Coalition for Better Government leaders Dominic Longo and Ron Calicchio sponsored dozens of applicants for jobs and promotions, according to the list. Other sponsors named repeatedly include Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th Ward); Tom Dart, the Democratic nominee for Cook County sheriff; and former laborers union leader Bruno Caruso.
Several religious leaders appeared on the list as sponsors. Among them was Rev. Jack Wall of Old St. Patrick’s Church, where the mayor attends services.
Molloy began working in the mayor’s office shortly after Daley’s election in 1989. She testified that she also kept paper records of hiring requests in Intergovernmental Affairs.
Molloy said she destroyed two cabinet drawers of those documents in 2002 at Sorich’s request.
Under cross-examination by Sorich’s lawyer, Thomas Anthony Durkin, Molloy said the process that she described began before Sorich joined Intergovernmental Affairs in 1993.
Molloy said she never told anyone outside Intergovernmental Affairs about the job lists. She said Sorich’s predecessor, Michael Broderick, told her, “It was something that was not supposed to be done in the office.”
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