And so we may have finally reached further than any of us had ever dreamed possible, the potentially deadly shadowland where the Chicago crime syndicate had its hands on the police department and the courts. My increasing anxiety was like being surrounded by electrically charged air before a storm comes on and not knowing where the lightning will strike.
Summer 1983
As this was happening, there was a shakeup in the mob gambling operation in the Rush Street entertainment district just north of downtown. Two hoods were supposed to kill one of Bob Silverman’s clients, Ken Eto (pronounced ET-oh), known as “Tokyo Joe” because his parents were Japanese. The short, ordinary-looking man in his early sixties ran a number of mob-protected gambling operations and had gained trust as its liaison with black “policy” operators. But to keep Eto from talking about the mob to the police and federal agents after his gambling arrest, he was taken for a one-way drive and shot three times in the head. Possibly because of the angle, the bullets failed to cause any major damage.
In the hospital, Eto reluctantly told authorities he was willing to give evidence against the men who had turned on him. Reporters were led to believe he was gravely wounded, and Eto was hustled out a back door under government protection that very night. Since the mob could no longer reach him, they killed both would-be assassins for botching the hit and stuffed them in the trunk of a car. Although the events had no direct bearing on our investigation, they were a reminder of the kind of people we were dealing with.
We had made so many inroads by now that our targets were bound to be comparing notes. Why was I hanging around only with fixers, why did I keep talking about the money I was handing over, why were a number of my clients apparently middle class and educated rather than the usual drunks and addicts that beginning defense lawyers normally handle? There were also questions about undercover agent David Victor Ries in the municipal courts as well as some of the “citizen moles” the FBI had persuaded to help with specific investigations.
FBI agent Bob Farmer and other Greylord supervisors felt it was time to pull up stakes. But there was no relief and no sense of accomplishment because so much work still needed to be done. We decided to take a risk in trying to “flip” someone who might be persuaded to wear a wire for us. Since Ries had used policeman Ira Blackwood ten times as a bagman in Traffic Court, Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Reidy felt he might want to save himself.
At five foot ten and weighing a hundred and ninety pounds, much of it muscle, the one-time boxer looked like someone who might stuff you into a meat grinder. Although his family came from the Missouri backwoods, Ira’s father had been an enforcer for Al Capone and ended up in Alcatraz. In fact, Blackwood once bragged about being the only member of his family who never went to prison. To us this meant prison had a grim reality for him, and the fifty-three-year-old policeman had a pension at stake.
One morning in July, the always well-dressed Blackwood was walking to his garage when two FBI agents identified themselves and asked him to accompany them downtown. At a meeting in the Dirksen Federal Building, Dan Reidy told the officer that two people he thought were friends of his, Judge Lockwood and attorney Ries, were working undercover and had taped seventy-five criminal conversations with him.
Blackwood sat seething as Dan also informed him that forty-four hundred dollars he had taken to pass on to judges had come from the FBI. In a theatrical touch, a door then opened and Agent Ries stepped into the room. Ira cringed.
Dan Reidy played a sampling of their tapes so Blackwood could hear just what a jury would. The bagman’s options were to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and keep his pension or take his chances in court and be convicted of racketeering. Not only would this mean prison, but everything he bought with those bribes could be confiscated by the government. Reidy gave him twenty-four hours to think it over.
If this had not been a tightly controlled situation, I think Blackwood might have bashed someone’s face in. Instead he didn’t say anything except, “I’m talkin’ to my lawyer.”
“Does that mean no?” Reidy asked.
“It means I’m talking to my lawyer.”
“You understand, Mr. Blackwood, we must ask that you not discuss this conversation with anyone.”
He walked out, leaving the entire FBI staff in anxious doubt. If he agreed to cooperate, everything would go as planned. If he didn’t, nothing could stop him from telling every fixer in the city what we were doing, and it wouldn’t be long before lawyers working out of the Criminal Courts Building and the courts in police headquarters began figuring out who the mole among them was.
Ira got back with the investigators at a downtown hotel, and a McDonald’s lunch was sent for. The burly policeman had brought an attorney with him, and the only names he gave up were of people who had died or those, as he must have somehow known, we already had evidence against. Obviously he was protecting the rest.
“Is that all?” Reidy asked distrustfully.
“Yeah. Like I told you, those other guys might be bums but I never had much dealing with them.”
“Forget it then,” Reidy said. “It’s all off, Ira. But I suggest that you get a new lawyer—one who really has your best interests at heart.”
For two weeks I kept appearing in court on contrived cases without knowing whether Blackwood would join our side or expose us. I kept looking over my shoulder although I had been assured my name was never being mentioned.
In time, Ira’s lawyer notified Dan Reidy that his client had declined the suggestion of cooperation and felt compelled to advise “certain persons” of his current situation. We feared the worst. But, surprisingly, Ira didn’t play Paul Revere by shouting from one end of the system to the other that the federal government was coming. He apparently notified just the judges he had personally passed bribes to on behalf of Ries and let it go at that, and those judges were so busy trying to cover themselves that they failed to call a strategy conference with the others.
Such was the tenuous state at the time for everyone involved on both sides. State’s Attorney Richard M. Daley, who had been informed about Greylord shortly after his election, went to a White Sox game with Judge Richard LeFevour and treated him like a buddy while knowing that the U.S. Attorney’s Office was planning to throw him into prison.
Blackwood’s refusal to cooperate worked against him. Eventually convicted of racketeering, bribery, and extortion, he lost his pension and was sentenced to seven years in prison. “My life has been wrecked, my wife is on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” he told his sentencing judge. “Four of my five kids don’t talk to me. This whole thing has been a nightmare.”
Still hoping for cooperation from a Greylord target, the government approached Harold Conn, the bagman whose boldness in passing a bribe in public had aroused FBI conjecture of widespread corruption in the Traffic Court Building. But Dan Reidy didn’t hit Conn with everything we had on him. To save me from disclosure and keep me out there fixing cases, the prosecutor told him only about David Victor Ries’ evidence, and once again Ries was brought in as part of the show.
Conn was shocked but recovered quickly and said hello to the undercover agent with unexpected warmth. The dapper black man listened politely to Reidy’s offer, then responded with a gentlemanly “No, thank you” and shook everyone’s hand before leaving. Just from the way Conn had said “No,” Reidy knew he would never reconsider, but no one knew if he would keep his mouth shut.
My greatest fear was that Lucius Robinson might get off with a minor sentence unless we could record a second bribe, to secure the racketeering conviction I had been hoping for. Feeling a sweat-dripping-down-my-back sense of urgency, I dropped by Judge Maurice Pompey’s chambers in early August and asked Lucius if he would serve as my go-between in a suburban auto theft case.
“I’m only getting fifteen hundred on the deal,” I said, “so I can give maybe five hundred. But, see, all I’m asking you right now is if it’s possible, because my guy hasn’t given me my full fee y
et.”
“It’s possible that I know the man [the judge] well enough that I can say something to him.”
“Great.”
“But the judges are dropping hints that you guys got to start asking for more money [from your clients] on these kinds of cases [bribed decisions]. They feel like the price on everything else is going up. They’re taking a chance on putting someone on the street for just five hundred.”
This was the first time anyone had suggested to me that judges wanted fixers to keep up with inflation. That gave me two ways of playing the scene. I could just complain, or I could use their own greediness against them.
I mentioned that the price used to be one hundred dollars in Narcotics Court and said the way it kept going up was ridiculous. In a gesture so bold I could hardly believe I was making it, I reached into my briefcase and took out a list of thirty judges handling felony trials in Chicago. “Can you deal with any of these people?” I asked.
My heart once more was thumping. Lucius was sharper than the cordial Harold Conn—would he sense the snare? The bagman went slowly down the list, then took my pen and checked off the names of three judges we coincidentally had nothing on. One of them was that law-and-order gavel-banger Thomas Maloney. Oh God, came a pulsing in my brain, I hope this operation holds together.
18
THE WALL COLLAPSES
August 1983
Lucius Robinson’s checklist made me feel almost mellow as I drove to a southwest suburban court where one of our FBI agents was about to appear before Judge Michael McNulty in a fabricated drunken driving case. I had promised to deliver five hundred dollars to bagman Jimmy LeFevour if the judge gave my client supervision. When I arrived, I asked the prosecutor if he would accept a guilty plea in return for court supervision to keep the defendant out of prison.
“McNulty doesn’t give supervision,” the prosecutor said. I knew that, but I just wanted it for the record and my FBI report.
The judge had the case called last, apparently so there would be fewer people around when he just fined my “client” two hundred dollars and put him under supervision, letting him keep his license. The prosecutor abruptly turned to me as if he had just heard a rattlesnake, so I gave him a fixer’s haughty smile and strolled out.
Judge McNulty would later plead guilty to three tax counts and be sentenced to three years in prison.
August 5, 1983
Since the supervision ruling meant a payoff, I went the following morning to police headquarters and met Jimmy LeFevour in a vacant stairwell. A few hours later that Friday, August 5, Bill Megary told me by phone that investigative reporter Peter Karl—who earlier had come close to discovering our work—had just announced on the five o’clock news that an Abscam-style investigation was being conducted in Chicago-area courts. Karl called it “the largest undercover operation in the history of the Justice Department.”
I was dumbfounded. For months I had longed to call an end to my undercover work, but now it seemed as if I had hardly begun. In an instant, my life had become a book with the second half ripped from the binding. I was upset with Karl for breaking the story. There were judges greedier than Olson we could have reached, along with fixers worse than Costello, Mark Ciavelli, and Peter Kessler. Now we would have to let them continue unlocking the jail cells.
Cathy and I had just laid out thousands of dollars to buy our suburban home, but now we might be moved to some other part of the country for our protection. I didn’t even know how I was supposed to act now that the secret was out.
I had been invited to a downtown bachelor party that evening for a man who had been one of my bosses when I was an ASA. Common sense told me to stay away because of all the lawyers who would be there, but I thought I had to make an appearance to keep them from talking over suspicions about me.
There must have been fifty lawyers and a dozen judges along the bar at the Counselors Row Restaurant, a favorite haunt for political figures because it was near the LaSalle Street legal district, city hall, the local Democratic Party headquarters, and the federal building complex. The place kept an informal, coy atmosphere and one of its hamburgers was nicknamed “the Lawbreaker.”
When I walked in, the news report had already caused a stir. The courts formed such a closed world that it meant every attorney and judge in the system personally had met the mole, whoever he might be. Speculation was so rampant that it almost eclipsed the entertainment for the night, three strippers.
One took everything off, then went into the audience, unzipped a partygoer’s pants, and started playing with him in front of everyone. She then went over to the honoree of the evening and stuck her tongue down his throat. I joined in the hooting and laughter to keep from appearing suspect but kept glancing at my watch and wishing someone would shut off the television set before the news came on. If I changed the channel myself, it would have been a confession.
The strippers let it be known they were available for separate negotiation, and a police sergeant I knew took one to his car. The two others went off to dress, leaving us to our drinks. Everyone crowded in front of the bar TVs, and a score of raucous conversations erupted when the ten o’clock news came on. The gaiety drowned the first few words of the exclusive, then one by one the party guests fell silent and either became tense about himself or sad for the corrupt people he knew.
“Federal sources say it’s bigger than Abscam,” Peter Karl announced. “Thirty judges, attorneys, cops and court bailiffs are expected to be indicted by the time the investigation is completed.”
You could hear a glass clink at the other end of the room. I inched closer to the television set suspended over the bar and couldn’t help watching the open-mouthed reaction of guests who I knew were corrupt. A few others slowly backed away, aghast, as if to say: it’s not me, it’s not me! Then a photograph of Judge Pompey appeared even though we didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. Apart from this one misguess, the report was startling for its depth.
I was prepared to walk out fast at the first mention of my name, before I could be mobbed by people demanding answers and maybe pounded with fists. Standing beside me was Harry Wilson, a former prosecutor. He was one of the few who had known of my role all along, and now he leaned over to say in his low voice, “I bet you’re glad it’s all over, huh?”
“Harry,” I whispered back, “I’m still undercover!”
Wilson’s face reddened and he started moving away as perspiration broke out around my collar. When I saw that no one was singling me out, I became almost giddy with relief. Before long it was fun to mingle with the party crowd and add a little misinformation here and there about the mystery government informant. If I heard a wild supposition about a lawyer who was in no way involved, I would saunter over to another group and repeat this so that the erroneous guess would pervade the courthouses for weeks.
An IRS agent even jokingly called August 5th “the day the world changed” because crooked judges suddenly went straight rather than be caught taking bribes or making major purchases with telltale cash. Yet a few of the Greylord targets still did not know about our investigation. Bagman Jimmy LeFevour learned of it when he opened the Saturday newspaper. As we discovered from testimony, he sat in shocked silence until receiving a call from Judge Richard LeFevour’s eldest son asking him to phone his cousin at his Michigan summer home. Jimmy was scared, but the judge told him not to worry, that he now knew all about the investigation. Well, not exactly everything, as it turned out.
The next day, the Chicago Tribune reported that an unnamed lawyer who had become “sick and tired of corruption … put his career on the line” to go undercover. That was me, but I felt safe since the article didn’t describe the lawyer as a former prosecutor. Even so, I was hoping my telephone would not ring.
When it did, Costello was on the other end. “Did you see the papers?”
“Yeah. What do you think?” I tried to sound enraged.
“Jesus Christ,” Costello replied, “it’s unbeli
evable. I’m not worried, though. I’m a low-volume guy. You know, I mind my own business. You just pick up enough to fucking eat. This stuff is after the big guys, they’re not looking for Mickey Mouse hustlers who just hang around.”
“What about Wayne?” I asked about Judge Olson.
“Hundreds of lawyers have dealt with him, they’ll never figure it all out.”
“Who’s the mole?” I was testing him.
“I don’t know—fuck it.”
“It’s not me,” I said with a forced laugh. “I don’t volunteer for anything.”
“Okay, Terry.”
“I heard it’s some guy named Victor who has an office at 2 North LaSalle,” I suggested. Why not throw the heat on David Victor Ries, alias David Victor? The FBI had pulled him out of the investigation by now because the press was on to him, although his name had not yet appeared in the papers.
“You think it’s him?”
“That’s what I heard.”
“I’ll ask around.”
As I hung up, I felt that perhaps Costello had suspected me, after all. His tone had seemed like a halfhearted effort to sound innocent or at least not worth bothering about. It was as if under his loud voice, a whisper had been saying: go easy on me, won’t you, Terry?
Early Monday, bagman Jimmy LeFevour drove to his cousin’s home, and the influential judge met him still wearing pajamas and a bathrobe. As the two men went over the newspaper articles together, Jimmy mentioned that State’s Attorney Daley said on television that he had known about the investigation for nearly three years.
“That little bastard,” the judge roared. While dialing Daley’s number, he said, “My sons helped in his campaign. I went to the God damned ballgame with him last Tuesday!”
Operation Greylord Page 22
