Sorry ladies, Chicago’s ranking crime fighter is off the market.
Less than two years after making People magazine’s list of the sexiest men alive, it was revealed Thursday that U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald is engaged to be married.
Fitzgerald’s pairing with investment-banker-turned-Head-Start-teacher Jennifer Letzkus was a surprise to many who think of the hard-charging prosecutor as having little time for a personal life.
At 46, Fitzgerald is 12 years older than his fiance. Letzkus, sometimes known as “Jenni,” lives near Fitzgerald in Lincoln Park.
“Don’t overlook the mature apple,” said Barbie Adler of Chicago-based Selective Search, a firm that helps professional men find mates. “The fact he waited could be a great thing. He got to know himself and know what he is looking for.”
It’s not like Fitzgerald was just hanging around, directionless, never really finishing anything.
Since being appointed to serve the Northern District of Illinois in 2001, Fitzgerald has put fear into the hearts of Chicago’s corrupt politicians, rogue cops, mobsters and white-collar crooks. This year, the prosecution he led saw Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, convicted in the CIA leak case.
His work ethic is legendary, with some suspecting he is awake and in his office at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse 22 hours a day.
Maybe that didn’t leave a lot of time for love to bloom.
“People may have said he will be the eternal bachelor, but the flip side is he spent so much time with his head down, focused on his career that he might be in a good place to pull back and devote attention to a new chapter in his life,” Adler said.
People magazine listed Fitzgerald in its “Smart Guys” category on the sexiest list in 2005, reminding readers he’s been called “Eliot Ness with a Harvard degree” and picturing him in a purposeful walk with a trench coat draped over his arm.
“You are commanded to testify to your incorruptible appeal and unfathomable lifestyle,” the magazine wrote.
Northwestern University law student Shira Weissman heard Fitzgerald speak at a public-interest law forum at the Chicago campus last year. She knew beforehand his reputation as one of the Chicago’s best catches.
Hearing him speak, Weissman said she understood why.
“You just look up there and think this is one hot-shot litigator. He can take down anyone,” Weissman said. “And he’s very good looking.”
But Fitzgerald has never even been nominated for the bachelors list in Today’s Chicago Woman magazine, said its founder, Sherren Leigh.
“I don’t think in Chicago he’s on the single-woman’s radar screen, or the single man’s,” Leigh said.
Many close to Fitzgerald declined to comment Thursday, saying they know how important Fitzgerald’s privacy is to him. The U.S. attorney’s office made no official statement, offered no details about the couple’s courtship, and would only confirm the news of the engagement.
Fitzgerald and Letzkus plan a small, private ceremony, said Randall Samborn, Fitzgerald’s spokesman.
“She’d better be good to him,” said Judy Markey, co-host of the Kathy and Judy Show on WGN radio.
Markey called herself a great admirer and added that the impending wedding proves Fitzgerald is “not an automaton.”
“But it’s not like I was planning to date him; he’s too smart,” Markey said. “Oh, yeah, and I’m married.”
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There was no word from the U.S. attorney’s office that Fitzgerald — with vigorous investigations running at City Hall, in state government, in Cook County government, inside the Chicago Police Department and against the Chicago Outfit — would be taking more early evenings to spend time with his soon-to-be wife.
Most who know him said Chicago should continue to wait for him to make the next big case.
Famous for stashing socks and underwear in his office, Fitzgerald may want to adjust some of those habits, Adler cautioned.
But Leigh said any career woman should understand a demanding job like Fitzgerald’s.
“When a successful woman is married to a really successful man,” Leigh said, “you have a beautiful sounding board for your own work problems.”
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