New charges for Hired Truck kingpin

January 28, 2005

BY STEVE WARMBIR, TIM NOVAK AND FRAN SPIELMAN Staff Reporters

The former gang member who ran the city's Hired Truck Program, Angelo Torres, worked hand in hand with two city employees -- a mob bookie and a convicted thief -- to shake down truck drivers seeking a piece of the $40 million city program, federal prosecutors charged Thursday.

The allegations came in a 46-page indictment that ups the ante significantly for Torres with a slew of new criminal charges against him.

Torres was originally charged one year ago, the first defendant in the federal investigation of the Hired Truck Program. Since then, 15 others have been charged in a probe that is expanding dramatically, sending tremors through City Hall.

The feds built this latest indictment on the cooperation of 11 trucking companies, which received $12 million from the Hired Truck Program from 2000 to 2003.

Torres and one city worker, John Boyle -- convicted in 1992 for stealing $4 million in tollway change -- took in more than $200,000 in bribes and political donations, along with other unnamed supervisors, prosecutors allege.

Helping them was the mob bookie, Nick LoCoco, who once supervised the Hired Truck Program for the Transportation Department but died last year in a horseback riding accident. Torres and Boyle have been fired by the city.

In addition to the bribes, some of the trucking companies were strong-armed to do free work on unnamed city officials' homes, the indictment alleges.

Benefitting from the political contributions was Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th), whose political organization received $2,500 from Naperville area trucking firm owner Martin McDonagh in 2003 and 2004, according to the indictment and campaign records. An unnamed state senator also reaped benefits from the program, with Torres allegedly shaking down at least two trucking firms for contributions to the senator.

McDonagh, charged in the indictment Thursday, is cooperating with the federal investigation, said his attorney, Corey Rubenstein.

McDonagh was a concrete contractor who set up a trucking firm in his wife's name, Elliott Inc., to get into the Hired Truck Program, but the city wasn't taking any new companies then. So McDonagh had to pay at least $1,000 to LoCoco to get into the program in 2003. Later on, McDonagh allegedly was hit up by Boyle for even more money, in the form of political contributions, to Carothers. Boyle was a low-level city employee, and the source of his great influence in the Hired Truck Program is unclear.

Carothers denies it

Carothers, a former top official in the city's Streets and Sanitation Department, said he knew Boyle because they had worked together at the city. But Carothers said he didn't ask Boyle to hit up McDonagh for a contribution.

Carothers said of Boyle: "He must think I'm running good government, and he supports good government. He goes right in that pile with everybody else."

McDonagh continued to get hit up. In late 2003, Torres allegedly told him that Elliott Inc. would be suspended from the program if McDonagh did not come in and "officially thank" Torres for letting him in. McDonagh complained to Boyle, who said that he and LoCoco would take care of it. After that, McDonagh didn't do anything more, and Elliott Inc. was not suspended. Elliott worked for the departments of Streets and Sanitation and Transportation in 2003, making more than $100,000.

On Thursday, at a news conference, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Shapiro said the indictment marked the first time that federal prosecutors showed endemic corruption in the Hired Truck Program in all four city departments that used the trucks. The Chicago Sun-Times first exposed the corruption and waste in January 2004.

"At every level, there seems to be corruption," Shapiro said.

It all began at the gateway to the program: Torres, a former gang member and an operative in Mayor Daley's Hispanic Democratic Organization, a group of political foot soldiers led by lobbyist Victor Reyes. Daley has repeatedly refused to say who hired Torres to run the Hired Truck Program.

Torres is accused of taking bribes to let companies into the Hired Truck Program, including Elliott and three other firms that got in despite the city freezing out new applicants. Torres also allegedly pocketed cash to handle bureaucratic problems for Hired Truck participants. Torres' attorney could not be reached for comment.

Feds accused of grandstanding

Boyle, previously charged in the case, had new allegations brought against him Thursday that show him working in concert with Torres and LoCoco. Another former city employee, Jason Martin, was named in the indictment as acting as a bribe-taking go-between for Boyle and a trucking firm that wanted into the program.

Boyle's attorney, James Tunick, criticized federal prosecutors Thursday for their latest move.

"The government just had their second news conference on my client," Tunick said. "They have spent more time on news conferences than they have in court. We look forward to our day in court."

In their latest indictment, prosecutors want to seize three pieces of property, two in Chicago and one in Park Ridge, that were purchased by LoCoco's son Anthony, also a city employee. Boyle has power of attorney over all three properties, worth more than $1 million.