by Jerry Agar

"If (Illinois) isn't the most corrupt state in the United States, it's certainly one hell of a competitor."  - Robert Grant, head of the FBI's Chicago office.

Illinois is known for political corruption.  Illinoians seem to revel in the stories, if not the results of, the shenanigans and characters.  A list like this is bittersweet - on the one hand, it's embarassing, but on the other, at least we caught these these people.  Here is my list of political shame:

10. Arenda Troutman.  Ironically, Troutman - former Chicago alderman - is on my list because she entertainingly told the truth.  Troutman, 49, was caught on video and on a wire saying, "Well the thing is, most aldermen, most politicians are ho's."  At another point, court documents indicate, she boldly asked of a potential developer, "What do I get out of it?" 

When the FBI knocked on her door, she did not answer.  When they entered her home, her document shredder was warm.  She lent her car to, and may have been dating, Donnell "Scandalous" Jehan, the #2 leader of the Black Disciples street gang.  Troutman was convicted of taking bribes and was sentenced to four years in prison.

9. Mayor Richard M. Daley.  Okay, he has not been convicted or even indicted, but as Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass has put it, "Thugs, morons, idiots and convicts were put on the city payroll to work the precincts so that Daley could keep getting elected."  In 2006 a federal investigation was launched into what prosecutors called "pervasive fraud" at City Hall.

Mayor Daley hired John "Quarters" Boyle — a man previously convicted of stealing $4 million (in quarters) from the Illinois Toll Highway Authority — for a Department of Transportation job. When asked whether stealing $4 million from a public agency disqualified someone from a city job, Daley replied, "No, I don't think so."  Boyle went on to take hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Hired Truck bribes, for which he received seven years in prison.

Daley keeps reminding us that while there may be corruption all around him, he doesn't see it, but once someone else does, he moves quickly to clean up the city every time.  Every single time.  Time after time.

It must be pointed out that Daley is consistently and decisively re-elected.  Either the "thugs and morons" are doing their jobs, people believe that he has no connection to the corruption, or they just really like the guy.

8. US Rep. Dan Rostenkowski.   This powerful Congressman - once the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee - was brought down by practices he likely considered par for the course.  His case exemplifies the deep-seated culture of corruption in Chicago and Illinois politics.

Rostenkowski was charged with keeping "ghost" employees on his payroll, using Congressional funds to buy gifts such as chairs and ashtrays for friends, and trading in officially purchased stamps for cash at the House post office.  He plead to mail fraud and spent 15 months in prison.

The rules may have changed, causing Dan Rostenkowski's downfall, but as anyone in Illinois knows, the politicians, for the most part, did not.

7. Dan Walker.   Walker’s scandal came after he was governor, but I am not letting him off the hook on a technicality for this list.

Walker was a veteran of World War II and the Korean War who made a name for himself investigating the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention riots.  He was convicted of improprieties related to the First American Savings & Loan Association of Oak Brook. Reportedly he received over a million dollars in fraudulent loans for his business and repairs on his yacht, the Governor's Lady.  U.S. District Judge Ann Williams said, "It's clear to this court that a pattern was established and that you, Mr. Walker, thought this bank was your own personal piggy bank to bail you out whenever you got into trouble."  He was sentenced to seven years in federal prison, and served 18 months.

6. Rod Blagojevich.   Charges involve conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery.  On January 8, 2009, the Illinois House of Representatives voted to impeach Blagojevich by a 114–1 vote for corruption and misconduct in office.  He was convicted and removed from office on January 29, 2009, by a unanimous 59–0 vote in the Illinois State Senate.  He is said to have demanded that if the Chicago Tribune wanted help selling the Cubs and Wrigley Field, the Tribune had to "fire all those [expletive] people, get 'em the [expletive] out of there, and get us some editorial support."  He was also accused of trying to sell a Senate seat, but the most shocking allegation is that he wanted a $50,000 contribution from Children's Memorial Hospital for backing $8 million to pay hundreds of doctors to treat poor sick children throughout Illinois.

"Blago" continues to tell any media outlet that will have him - and that appears to be most of them - that he is an innocent man.  He has yet to go to trial, so there is possible upward mobility on this list for the former governor.

5. Paul Powell.   The former Illinois secretary of State was found with $800,000 in shoe boxes in his hotel room when he died.  According to the book Paul Powell of Illinois: A Lifelong Democrat, Powell never earned a state salary of more than $30,000 per year, yet in the last year of his life, his federal income tax return showed an income of more than $200,000.  At his death his estate totaled $3.2 million, and, when settled in 1978, was worth $4.6 million, including nearly $1 million in racetrack stock.

After his death in 1970, it was learned that his home contained shoe boxes full of hundreds of thousands of dollars in checks made out to him by Illinois residents who thought they were paying license plate registration fees.  (Note to self: make check out to agency, not to head of agency.)

4. Otto Kerner.  He was a Governor in the 1960s who was convicted of taking bribes from a racetrack owner who thought bribes were a normal business expense in Illinois. Maybe they were (and are) but they are still illegal.

In 1969, Marge Lindheimer Everett, manager of Arlington Park and Washington Park race tracks, admitted bribing then-Governor Kerner and his Finance Director, Ted Isaacs, to gain choice racing dates and to get two expressway exits for her Arlington Park racetrack. In a stunning commentary on how deep corruption flows in Illinois, Everett deducted the value of the bribe on her federal income tax returns because she thought that bribery was an ordinary and necessary business expense in Illinois.

Kerner was convicted on 17 counts of bribery, conspiracy, perjury, and related charges, sentenced to three years in federal prison, and fined $50,000. His prosecutor was future Illinois governor James R. Thompson. 

3. George Ryan.   Convicted on corruption charges and is currently serving time.  It took the horrific deaths of six children from the Willis family of Chicago, and severe injuries to their parents, to bring Ryan’s corruption to light. 

On Election Day 1994, a piece of a tail-light assembly fell off a semi-trailer on a Milwaukee expressway and bounced beneath a minivan, rupturing its gas tank and exploding the van into flames.  Other motorists tried to warn the driver of the truck of the danger, but he didn't understand English, as federal law requires.  An internal investigation found the driver may have paid a bribe to get his license. Ryan's response was to squash the probe and fire the investigators. 

In addition to Ryan about 35 unelected state employees went to jail.

In 2005, he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for his most famous act as governor: commuting the death sentences of over 160 Illinois inmates.  It is perhaps to Ryan’s own benefit that one of the things he is credited with accomplishing in Illinois is prison reform.

2. Lennington Small.   Served as Illinois governor in the 1920s, during which time he was charged with embezzling over $1 million in state funds. That was back when a politician was really stealing when he took "only" a million dollars. Small went on trial in 1922 — while still serving as governor — and despite substantial evidence, he was acquitted and went on to serve seven more years in office. After his trial, in a dazzling display of hutzpah, four of the jurors received state jobs. 

The book, "Len Small: Governors and Gangsters,"  reveals that there definitely was a tie between the governor and Al Capone.  Len Small was a favorite of the Ku Klux Klan, which endorsed his campaigns in 1924, 1928, and 1932.  (In 1920's Chicago, the Klan claimed to stand for "decency and good government."  It is delicious irony that they seemed to get neither from Governor Small.)