Read the latest news from around Illinois.
The Center Square: Former ComEd VP charged with bribery in patronage scheme tied to Speaker Madigan
A former vice president at ComEd was charged in a federal bribery conspiracy in what prosecutors say was a nearly 10-year scheme to curry favor with Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
The criminal complaint filed in the Northern District of Illinois against Fidel Marquez alleges that, for nearly a decade, he conspired “with others known and unknown” to solicit and demand things of value like jobs, contracts and money, for the benefit of “Public Official A.”
Chicago Sun-Times: Feds subpoenaed Illinois Senate President Don Harmon’s office for docs on Chinatown property
Federal authorities subpoenaed Illinois Senate President Don Harmon’s office earlier this summer as part of the expansive public corruption probe that has roiled the highest levels of city and state politics.
Chicago U.S. Attorney John Lausch’s office demanded Harmon turn over any documents related to a parcel of land at Cermak Road and Wentworth Avenue. That state-owned property was one topic of a conversation secretly recorded by the FBI in 2014 involving Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, former 25th Ward Ald. Danny Solis and two Chinatown businessmen.
Chicago Tribune: Five police shootings in Chicago in two months, but no video released on any of them. Is it taking too long for the public to see what happened?
After facing withering criticism for withholding video of the fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald five years ago, the city of Chicago created what it billed as one of the first written policies that guaranteed release of footage of officers using force.
For the first time, it set up a deadline — 60 days — for making video and other evidence available to the public. Even critics hailed it as an unprecedented shift toward transparency.
Chicago Tribune: Column: Mayor Lightfoot’s ’pandemic budget’ avoids the hard choices
Even before the pandemic hit, we knew 2021 was going to be a pick-your-poison budget for Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
Thanks largely but not exclusively to costs and consequences from COVID-19, the budget gap Lightfoot faces is a bitter pill: $1.2 billion. That amounts to about 10% of last year’s budget — and it could get worse.