"Connections Trump Qualifications in Chicago: Patronage Chief Supplied Names For Hiring"

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Witness: Patronage Chief Supplied Names For Hiring
Falcon Said She Was Instructed To 'Deny, Deny, Deny'
The Associated Press


CHICAGO -- Mayor Richard M. Daley's former patronage chief secretly supplied
the city's sewer department with the names of those to be hired for jobs
that were supposed to be filled free of political influence, a federal
witness testified Tuesday.

But former sewer department personnel director Mary Jo Falcon, the
government's leadoff witness at the trial of former patronage chief Robert
Sorich and three other ex-officials, said she was warned by her predecessor
to keep Sorich's name off any hiring documents.

And she testified at this city's second major political corruption trial of
the year she was warned when she took the job that if anyone asked her about
the hiring process, "Deny, deny, deny."

Falcon said she met with Sorich up to 30 times a year to get names of job
candidates. 

"As you walked out of his office, did you consider them recommendations?"
Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick M. Collins asked.

"No," Falcon said.

"What did you understand them to be?" Collins asked.

"Hires," Falcon said.

Sorich, 43, and his co-defendants are charged with being part of a scheme in
which ratings of job applicants were faked and documents hidden or destroyed
to conceal the continued use of political clout as the basis for hiring city
workers.

The case has put a major scandal on the doorstep of Daley, who has been
mayor since 1989 and is expected to run for re-election next year. He has
been accused of no wrongdoing.

Also charged are Timothy McCarthy, 35, John Sullivan, 38, and Patrick
Slattery, 42, all of whom are former Daley administration staffers. Sullivan
is also charged with lying to the FBI.

The four men say nothing they did was illegal and that no one was ordered to
hire anyone. They say the mayor's office of intergovernmental affairs, where
Sorich was the No. 2 official, merely recommended candidates for city jobs.

But prosecutors say that from that position he not only saw to it that
politically connected applicants got city jobs in preference to others, but
also directed groups of campaign workers who got out the vote on Election
Day for Daley and candidates he supported.

The city workers hired on orders from Sorich were the same people working in
the "patronage armies" that got out the vote, prosecutors say.

Patronage -- the practice of rewarding political followers with city jobs --
is banned under a 1983 court order known as the Shakman Decree. Under the
decree, only about 1,000 of the 37,000 city jobs can be filled based on
political affiliation.

But prosecutors say the mayor's office of intergovernmental affairs secretly
kept the patronage system alive by faking scores and hiding the way city
employees got their jobs.

Falcon, who eventually became personnel director for the combined sewer and
water department, said she went along with the system because she "wanted to
be a team player."

She said the list of people to be hired that she received from Sorich was
known as "the blessed list" because the job candidates on it had the
blessing of City Hall higher-ups.

Falcon said she made it plain to the panels of sewer department officials
who interviewed job candidates that those on the blessed list had to get the
highest scores.

She said sometimes she would get rating forms from the panels without any
numerical rating and that she would fill in the numbers herself to reflect
well on Sorich's selections.

"Because those were the names that intergovernmental affairs gave me -- they
should be getting those jobs," said Falcon, who testified under immunity
from prosecution.

Starting in 2000, she began getting names for hiring from McCarthy, who had
moved from a job in the department of aviation to the office of
intergovernmental affairs, she testified. But she said she also continued to
deal with Sorich.

Falcon testified that when she went to work for the city in June 1993 she
had no political experience. But the Philippines-born attorney testified she
immediately joined a get-out-the-vote group composed mainly of
Asian-Americans.

Later, she testified, she joined a different such Asian-American group and
eventually became the head of it. She said the group, which engaged in
doorbell-ringing, literature distributing, canvassing and phone banking, got
its directions from Sorich.

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