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Grand jury seeks city contract filesMarch 19, 2002 BY FRAN SPIELMAN CITY HALL REPORTER A federal grand jury has subpoenaed city tax records for four companies controlled by the Duff family, signaling that the feds are still trying to determine whether a maintenance company with political ties to Mayor Daley and reputed ties to organized crime fronted as a woman-owned business. The Feb. 14 subpoena demands employee expense tax records filed by Windy City Maintenance, Windy City Labor Service, Remedial Environmental Manpower, Inc. and Remedial Daily Labor from Jan. 1, 1998, to the present. Copies of the subpoena were released by City Hall Monday in response to a request by the Chicago Sun-Times under freedom of information laws. It marks the first demand for city records pertaining to Duff-owned companies and the first indication that the federal investigation of the Duffs is still alive under the administration of newly appointed U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Windy City was formed shortly after Daley took office and was placed in the name of Patricia Green, wife of John Duff Jr., who has a criminal record. Duff Jr. and his son, John III, have a history of ties to organized crime dating to the 1960s. On New Year's Eve 1999, the city's Law Department stripped Windy City of its minority status after an internal investigation found that men ran the company. At the time, Corporation Counsel Mara Georges insisted that there was no evidence of fraud because the ownership change evolved when Patricia Green gradually withdrew from the company because of an illness. A few days later, the Rev. Jesse Jackson embarrassed Daley by demanding a federal investigation to "stop the crooks and open the books.'' The call was heeded by the feds the following week. Jackson's tough stance on a controversy that had been swirling around City Hall for months came after Daley left a joint appearance with Jackson at Operation PUSH that was arranged to provide the mayor with political cover from the Duff controversy. The mayor said later he had nothing to hide and expressed confidence that an investigation at any level would uncover no fraud. ''Let them investigate. Let them look at the whole thing,'' the mayor said at the time. Over the years, Daley has accepted campaign contributions and political foot soldiers provided by the Duff family. Asked in 2000 whether he would sever his ties to the Duffs after the city stripped Windy City of its status as a woman-owned business, he said, ''I have no financial or political ties to them." A no-bid contract to clean up Taste of Chicago started the ball rolling on $100 million in government contracts for Duff-controlled companies. At the time it was stripped of its women's business enterprise status, Windy City Maintenance had $5.3 million in janitorial contracts at the city's 911 Center and at Area 2 Police Headquarters, and a $3 million subcontract at O'Hare Airport. All of those contracts were re-bid. |
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