"Political Patronage vs. Job Knowledge: Hiring Fraud Trial of Former Chicago Aviation Department Personnel Director"

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Witness describes freezing out job applicants 
BY MIKE ROBINSON
The Associated Press


A tearful witness told the trial of Mayor Richard M. Daley's former
patronage chief Thursday she was proud to have been part of Chicago's
political system but was not proud that she froze out job applicants by
fixing the hiring process at the city sewer department.

In a quavering voice and pausing to dab at her eyes, Mary Jo Falcon
testified that she spent a decade weeding out job candidates who lacked
political clout and quietly altering rating scores to make sure that job
applicants favored by patronage chief Robert Sorich got hired.

"I was proud that I helped the political system, but I wasn't proud that the
other candidates on the list didn't get a chance," said the government's
leadoff witness at the trial of Sorich and three other former officials
charged with taking part in a hiring fraud scheme.

She then stopped to compose herself.

Falcon, the former personnel director in the sewer department and later the
combined sewer and water department, said she felt a sense of relief when
FBI agents finally knocked on her door.

"I told them I knew what I did was bad," said Falcon, who testified under
immunity from prosecution for anything she admitted on the witness stand.

She said she also told the agents that "Robert was a nice guy."

"Did you tell them anything else about Robert?" asked Sorich lawyer Thomas
Anthony Durkin.

"That he was a nice guy and I didn't want to hurt him," Falcon said. After
that she was excused by U.S. District Judge David H. Coar and left the
courthouse declining to comment.

Sorich, 43, and his co-defendants are charged with taking part in a scheme
under which Chicago's age-old patronage system was kept alive at City Hall
by faking job applicant ratings and hiding or destroying hiring lists.

Patronage means rewarding those who get out the vote on Election Day with
jobs on the public payroll. Under the 1983 Shakman Decree, named for
patronage-fighting attorney Michael Shakman, only about 1,000 of the 37,000
city jobs may be filled on the basis of political affiliation.

Also charged in the indictment are Timothy McCarthy, 35, John Sullivan, 38,
and Patrick Slattery, 42. Sullivan also is charged with lying to the FBI.

The defendants say they didn't force Falcon or anyone else to hire anybody
and that the names Sorich furnished to city personnel directors were merely
recommendations. They say Daley, who has been accused of no wrongdoing in
the case, wanted Sorich to promote diversity on the city payroll and that
was the main reason why Sorich passed along names of potential hires.

Falcon said she was told when she got the job that her real boss was Sorich
and not the city sewer commissioner. She said she understood those "blessed"
by the patronage chief had to be hired.

McCarthy defense attorney Patrick E. Deady tried to chip away at Falcon's
story on cross examination. Under prodding by Deady, she admitted that
McCarthy never had told her to change numbers of job candidate rating
reports and that she never told him she was doing it.

McCarthy was personnel director at the Department of Aviation, which
operates O'Hare International Airport and Midway Airport, before he became
an aide to Sorich in the mayor's office of intergovernmental
affairs--described by prosecutors as the nerve center of a citywide
political operation that delivered the vote for Daley and other candidates
favored by the mayor.

Deady spent two hours Thursday afternoon pounding away at a chunk of
evidence that the government hopes will refute in the minds of jurors the
claim that Sorich's goal in sending names of potential job candidates to
departmental personnel directors was to promote diversity.

A highly trained black, female plumber with decades of experience, Laura
Miller, was turned down for a job in the sewer department as a house drain
inspector while a number of white male rivals who lacked equal
qualifications but were on the "blessed list" were hired.

In the end, Falcon wouldn't budge from saying the difference was clout.

"Why didn't Laura Miller get the job?" asked lead prosecutor Patrick M.
Collins.

"Because she was not on my list," Falcon said.

"When you say your list," Collins started to ask.

"The list that Mr. Sorich gave me," Falcon said.

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