Just in Case You Think the Only Corrupt People are Politicians
There are business crooks, too.
And U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has indicted two such alleged crooks today.
George Konjuch, a former LaSalle Bank first vice president in charge of security is charged with
“allegedly” accepting “$400,000 in cash and other benefits in return for steering tens of millions of dollars worth of “above market-price(d) for preventative maintenance on security equipment and other services” to Armando Navarrete and his company, Navarrete Industries, doing business as “Integrated Security Solutions” and “INS.”From 2001 through 2006, the security firm over billed LaSalle and the bank that bought LaSalle, ABM AMRO.
When’s the last time you heard of a politician getting $400,000 in bribes?
The overcharging is said to have been $45 million.
Less than a one percent kickback, as I figure it.
There is one similarity to the charges brought against former Governor George Ryan.
Both were alleged to have received wedding presents for their children in their indictments.
You can read the entire press release here. Posted first on McHenry County Blog.
3 comments:
And what is Mayor Daley's haul for all these years? Nothing? Some people hide things better than others.
Mayor Daley's friends became millionaires on the City Taxpayers back, and they gave the Chicago Clout King Mayor Daley nothing in return?
7 December 2007
PRESS RELEASE
Chicago, 7 December 2007
City of Chicago’s Settlement of Police Torture Case Patterson v. Burge for Five Million Dollars
The law firm of Ávila & Tomic, LLC, are pleased to announce that we have secured a settlement on behalf of torture victim Aaron Patterson from the City of Chicago and the former police officers who tortured and framed him and secured the false conviction and death sentence. The city, on behalf of itself, retired police lieutenant Jon Burge, and the retired police detectives who served under Lt. Burge, have agreed to pay five million dollars for what they did to Aaron Patterson.
In 1986, Area 2 detectives, under the command of Lieutenant Burge, wanted to clear the case of the of the Sanchez murders. Detective Joseph Danzl coerced the 16-year-old neiece of another suspect into implicating Aaron Patterson for the murders.
Mr. Patterson, then 21-years of age, had been a periodic annoyance to the Area 2 detectives. He had been a member of a gang, but he was different somehow; the son of a public school teacher and a Chicago Police lieutenant, Aaron earned good marks in school, restricted his violence to other gang members, and was rapidly straightening his life out by serving honourably in the Illinois Army National Guard and taking the Chicago police examination.
None of that mattered to the sadistic lieutenant Burge. His now infamous interrogation rooms at Area 2 were torture chambers, where suffocation, hitting suspects with telephone books, clipping electrical leads to suspects’ testicles and sending shocks with a generator, threatening suspects with pistols and revolvers at the men’s heads, and simply beating the men with their fists were all employed to force the primarily African-American suspects into signing whatever false “confession” Lt. Burge and his detectives wanted to clear their cases. Meanwhile, the actual culprits of the crimes were free to continue to prey on the citizens of Area 2.
Lt. Burge, Sergeant Jack Byrne, and Detectives Danzl, Ray Madigan, William Marley, Dan McWeeny, William Pedersen and James Pienta suffocated Aaron Patterson with a vinyl typewriter cover until he passed out from lack of oxygen, beat him with their fists, and threatened him with a revolver. Eventually, as anyone would, Aaron cracked and signed the false “confession” in order to save his own life. He told his attorney, he told the judge when he was first arraigned, but it was too late. Between the false “confession” and the fake “witness” (who recanted), Aaron was convicted and sentenced to be executed.
Aaron and spent the next sixteen years proving his innocence, as did the other victims of Lt. Burge. During lost his twenties and thirties to corrupt Chicago Policemen and awaited the executioner’s needle for a crime he never committed. Governor Ryan granted him a full pardon for innocence in January 2003.
It is unfortunate that Aaron Patterson was abandoned by his former attorneys, the so-called
“People’s Law Office,” (a private law firm, despite its name) and nearly the entire case. Frank Ávila of Ávila & Tomic, LLC, agreed, at the urging of urban translator, Wallace “Gator” Bradley, to reverse much of the damage to Aaron’s case. Ávila, his partner Ivan Tomic, and their associate David A. Miley, added the Austin, Texas-based, law-firm Barry & Loewy to their team in January 2007. The two firms express their appreciation to Alderman Ed Smith for encouraging the city to end their opposition to compensating Aaron Patterson for destroying his life.
**********
Ávila & Tomic, LLC, is a Chicago-based litigation firm. Please contact Frank B. Ávila or David A. Miley at either 312-762-5928 (telephone), 312-762-5929 (telefacsimile), 773-671-3480 (Ávila mobile), 312-523-6537 (Miley mobile) or Ávila@Justice.com & David.Miley@NetZero.com
Barry & Loewy, LLP, is an Austin, Texas, -based litigation firm. Please contact either Carl R. Barry or Adam J. Loewy at 512-852-4321 (telephone) or 512-687-3481 (telefacsimile).
Since when is taking a commission a felony? Kickbacks in private industry are as common a frequent flier miles.
I doubt this is illegal, except under the umbrella that all business is illegal whenever the government decides it to be illegal.
JBP
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