State hires expert for corruption case

[hippiechick]

Any up-staters want to 'splain a little more in detail about this? :shrug:


State hires expert for corruption case

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070619/LOCAL/706190419

EAST CHICAGO, Ind. -- The state has hired an attorney who led a federal corruption case against the former Illinois governor to help an Indiana racketeering lawsuit. Indiana Attorney General Steve Carter in August 2004 filed two lawsuits against the administration of former East Chicago Mayor Robert Pastrick. They seek repayment to the city of $3.1 million, accusing the administration of using taxpayer money to help Pastrick win re-election in 1999.

Carter hired Patrick Collins to join a legal team that includes Notre Dame professor Robert Blakey, a nationally known racketeering expert who helped write the federal organized crime laws after working in Robert Kennedy's Justice Department in the 1960s. Collins is the federal prosecutor who led the corruption cases against former Illinois Gov. George Ryan and Chicago patronage boss Robert Sorich, both of whom were convicted last year.

<snip>

Although racketeering laws were written to combat organized crime, Carter said corrupt political organizations often mimic the actions of organized criminals, which was why the state chose to use the RICO statute to go after East Chicago.

The case is scheduled to go to trial in summer 2008, but attorneys have not begun taking depositions. No one faces jail time because it's a civil lawsuit. Pastrick's attorney, Michael Bosch, of Hammond, said the case is simply a political ploy for Carter. "I don't think the attorney general wanted to do anything with this case until it gets close to time for his re-election campaign" in 2008, Bosch said.

The case is an outgrowth of the criminal Sidewalk Six case, in which more than a dozen city officials and contractors were jailed for handing out unbid city services in exchange for votes.

:shrug: And that's something unusual, how, exactly?