CHICAGO POLICE COMMANDER ARRESTED FOR LYING TO FBI AGENTS
AS PART OF HIRED TRUCK PROGRAM CORRUPTION INVESTIGATION
 

CHICAGO – Chicago Police Cmdr. Michael J. Acosta, until last week the city’s highest-ranking officer stationed at O’Hare and Midway airports, was arrested on federal charges for allegedly lying to FBI agents investigating alleged corruption in the city’s Hired Truck Program (HTP). Acosta was arrested on Monday based on a sealed federal criminal complaint charging him with making false statements to FBI agents, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The complaint was unsealed today when Acosta made his initial court appearance.

Acosta, 58, of Chicago, appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Sidney Schenkier in U.S. District Court. He is the 17^th defendant charged in the ongoing public corruption investigation.

According to an FBI affidavit supporting the complaint, during the course of an FBI and federal grand jury investigation, agents learned of a relationship between Acosta and John Boyle, a former Chicago Department of Transportation employee and a federal defendant in the Hired Truck investigation. The investigation developed evidence that Boyle requested and received favors from Acosta, including the receipt of criminal history information from law enforcement databases. On Oct. 6, 2004, FBI agents interviewed Acosta at his office at the Chicago O’Hare police station. After being told that the FBI was investigating Boyle and the favors Boyle requested, Acosta allegedly falsely denied recalling any favors for Boyle and specifically denied ever providing Boyle or anyone else with criminal history information.

The complaint alleges that Acosta lied when he said that Boyle never asked him for any person’s arrest record and criminal history information; he would not provide Boyle or anyone else with criminal history information; and he could not recall any favors requested by Boyle that related to his position in law enforcement.

Acosta allegedly told agents that he could not think of any favors that Boyle ever asked for that related to his position in law enforcement. In fact, in addition to requesting an individual’s criminal information, Boyle asked Acosta for several favors related to his position. These allegedly included a request for information from police files relating to the closing of a bar, a request to release a car from an O’Hare parking lot without paying a fee of either $200 or $300, and a request from Acosta to have Boyle’s excess baggage fee waived by an airline. Acosta told agents the only thing that Boyle would have asked him was why someone was in jail, adding he could not recall any specific person about whom Boyle had made such an inquiry. The complaint alleges that, in fact, a number of the requests were not related to Boyle asking Acosta about anyone being incarcerated.

The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Manish Shah, Barry Miller and Patrick Collins. If convicted, making false statements carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The Court, however, would determine the appropriate sentence to be imposed.

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The public is reminded that a complaint contains only charges and is not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

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