Daley grind: Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson is 37th City Council member convicted in less than half a century

Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11th) is the first former or sitting Chicago alderperson to be convicted since former Ald. Ricardo Muñoz (22nd) pleaded guilty last September and the 37th since Fred Hubbard (2nd) in 1973. It averages out to a Council member convicted every 16 months.

Chicago’s most enduring political dynasty, the Daleys have held positions of power in all levels of government — city, county, state and federal — and been on a first-name basis with presidents.

But Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson has earned the family a dubious new first.

The grandson and nephew of Chicago mayors and a U.S. Cabinet official became the first Daley since the family’s rise in politics to land a spot in the Chicago City Hall of Shame.

With his conviction Monday on two counts of lying to regulators and five counts of filing false income tax returns, Thompson joins another large extended family of sorts.

Thompson is the 37th member of the City Council since the early 1970s to be convicted of a crime.

It averages out to a Council member convicted every 16 months.

There’s no formal induction ceremony to the Hall of Shame — other than any related to whatever penalty will be handed down when the 11^th Ward alderperson is sentenced on July 6.

But either way, they’re all members in dubious standing.

Thompson is the first former or sitting Chicago alderperson to be convicted since former Ald. Ricardo Muñoz (22nd) pleaded guilty last September to wire fraud and money laundering. Munoz admitted he took nearly $38,000 from the Chicago Progressive Reform Caucus to pay for such personal expenses as skydiving and a relative’s college tuition.

The 22^nd Ward Democrat was the first Council member convicted since state law changed the name of the office from “alderman” to the more gender-neutral “alderperson.”

But whether they like it or not, Thompson, Munoz and the rest are just as likely to be remembered as “aldercrooks.”

Ashlee Rezin/ Sun-Times file

Thompson, 52, is the grandson of Richard J. Daley, who was Chicago’s longest-serving mayor until his son Richard M. Daley took that title. In addition to Richard M. Daley, Thompson’s other uncles include William Daley, who once served as chief of staff to President Barack Obama and Commerce secretary under President Bill Clinton, and Cook County Commissioner John Daley, the 11^th Ward Democratic committeeperson.

Thompson is the first member of that august family to stand trial, although another grandson of the late mayor, Richard J. “R.J.” Vanecko, pleaded guilty in 2014 to involuntary manslaughter, admitting he threw the punch that caused David Koschman’s death a decade earlier.

Beyond being the first Daley, Thompson is also the first sitting City Council member to stand trial since Ald. Percy Giles, who was convicted in November 1999 of taking bribes in the federal Operation Silver Shovel probe.

That was a busy year for aldermanic corruption. The West Side alderman was the second member of the Council to stand before a jury in the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in 1999. Ald. Virgil Jones (15th) was found guilty in January of accepting $7,000 in bribes from a mole in Operation Silver Shovel.

More recently, City Hall veteran William Beavers faced a jury in the Dirksen building in 2013 in a headline-grabbing trial. But the self-proclaimed “hog with the big nuts” had already moved on from the City Council to the Cook County Board by then.

Others have faced criminal charges over the past decades, but they often pleaded guilty, avoiding trial.

Thompson is also the first alderman convicted from Bridgeport’s 11^th Ward, the Daley family’s base of power for nearly three-quarters of a century.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file

Other wards have seen more City Council members leaving in shame.

Convicted in 2019, Ald. Willie Cochran was the third from the South Side’s 20th Ward, following in the sad footsteps of his predecessors Arenda Troutman and Cliff Kelley. Just as sadly, two other wards — the Southwest Side’s 23rd and Northwest Side’s 31st — also count three former alderpersons on the list.

The ranks of the fallen also include the West Side father-and-son duo of William Carothers (28th) and Isaac “Ike” Carothers (29th), convicted nearly 30 years apart of unrelated crimes.

And there’s Ambrosio Medrano (25th), the Grover Cleveland of Chicago corruption, earning a place on the list three times for three separate corruption scandals.

The former Southwest Side alderman was first convicted in 1996 for accepting bribes. And then in 2014, two federal judges presiding over separate cases handed Medrano a total of 13 years in prison over corrupt deals involving bribes and kickbacks, although Medrano left prison in 2020 as part of an effort to release inmates who are at risk of contracting the coronavirus.

So, dating back to 1973, here’s Chicago’s Aldermanic Hall of Shame. Some on the list appear for crimes that occurred after their time in City Council, including James Laski, Ed Vrdolyak and Beavers.

And the list only includes those actually convicted — not those indicted, but who have not yet gone or never did go to trial — in the interest of keeping it to a manageable number.

Fred Hubbard (2nd) – 1973
Pleaded guilty to embezzling.

Joseph Jambrone (28th) – 1973
Convicted of taking bribes.

Casimir J. Staszcuk (13th) – 1973
Found guilty of extortion by demanding $9,000 in exchange for allowing three zoning changes. Also convicted of mail fraud and income tax evasion.

Joseph Potempa (23rd) – 1973
Pleaded guilty to taking a $3,000 bribe to support a zoning change in his ward — and for failing to report that income to the IRS.

Frank Kuta (23rd) – 1974
Convicted of taking a $1,500 bribe from a builder to approve a zoning change and also for failing to report that income.

Thomas E. Keane (31st) – 1974
Convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy for a scheme involving the purchase and resale of tax-delinquent properties.

Chicago Sun Times file

Paul T. Wigoda (49th) – 1974
Convicted of tax evasion for failing to report a $50,000 bribe related to the rezoning of the Edgewater Golf Club. He also was Keane’s law partner.

Donald T. Swinarski (12th) – 1975
Pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return in connection with a $7,000 payoff for a zoning change. Later became a state senator.

Edward T. Scholl (41st) – 1975
Convicted of taking bribes.

Stanley Zydlo (26th) – 1980
Pleaded guilty to paying a bribe.

William Carothers (28th) – 1983
Convicted of attempted extortion.

Sun-Times file photos.

Louis P. Farina (36th) – 1983
Convicted of extortion.

Sun-Times file photo

Tyrone T. Kenner (3rd) – 1983
Convicted of taking bribes.

Chester A. Kuta (31st) – 1987
As part of the Operation Phocus investigation of bribe-taking by city licensing and inspection officials, Kuta pleaded guilty to charges of filing a false income tax return and to extorting $5,370 from Leonard Kraus, a businessman who paid the bribes to maintain a flea market in Kuta’s ward.

Clifford P. Kelley (20th) – 1987
Pleaded guilty to taking bribes.

Wallace Davis Jr. (27th) – 1987
Convicted of extortion.

Perry Hutchinson (9th) – 1988
Pleaded guilty to taking bribes.

Marian Humes (8th) – 1989
Pleaded guilty to taking bribes.

Fred Roti (1st) – 1993
Convicted for bribery, extortion and racketeering.

Ambrosio Medrano (25th) – 1996, 2014
In 2014, a federal judge said Medrano pulled of an “unprecedented … corruption trifecta” that included his role in a scheme to take bribes and kickbacks to sell bandages to public hospitals, along with another conviction that year, after his 2 ½-year sentence in the 1990s for accepting bribes.

Jessica Koscielniak / Sun-Times file

Allan Streeter (17th) – 1996
Pleaded guilty to extortion.

Joseph Martinez (31st) – 1997
Pleaded guilty to holding a ghost-payroll job after he served as alderman.

John White/Sun-Times file

Jesse Evans (21st) – 1997
Convicted of racketeering and extortion.

Joseph Kotlarz (35th) – 1997
Convicted of theft and conspiracy for skimming $240,000 from a 1992 tollway land deal.

John Madryzk (13th) – 1998
Pleaded guilty to partaking in a ghost-payrolling scheme.

Larry Bloom (5th) – 1998
Pleaded guilty to a single felony tax charge stemming from the Operation Silver Shovel corruption probe. Admitted accepting $14,000 in bribes from an FBI mole.

Virgil Jones (15th) – 1999
Convicted of taking bribes.

Chicago Sun-Times file

Percy Giles (37th) – 1999
Found guilty of taking payoffs and tax evasion.

James Laski (23rd) – 2006
Pleaded guilty to accepting $48,000 in bribes related to the city’s Hired Truck Program. His criminal conviction stemmed from his role as city clerk.

Ed Vrdolyak (10th) – 2008 and 2019
Though he never was convicted for anything related to his role as an alderman, authorities have since convicted him twice in public corruption-related schemes.

Sun-Times archvies

Arenda Troutman (20th) – 2008
Pleaded guilty to bribery and tax charges, admitted to extorting developers seeking zoning preferences.

Isaac “Ike” Carothers (29th) – 2010
Pleaded guilty to bribery, mail fraud and tax fraud for accepting $40,000 in home improvements, meals and sports tickets from a West Side developer in exchange for zoning changes that netted the developer millions. William Carothers was his father.

William Beavers (7th) – 2013
Sentenced to six months and fined $10,000 after being found guilty of tax evasion.

Sandi Jackson (7th) – 2013
Both Sandi Jackson and her now ex-husband, former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., pleaded guilty to various schemes relating to the looting of his campaign committee. Sandi Jackson pleaded guilty to filing a false federal income tax return.

Willie Cochran (20th) – 2019
Cochran pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud for spending money from a ward fund meant for charity on personal expenses.

Ricardo Muñoz (22nd) – 2021
Pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering, admitting he took nearly $38,000 from the Chicago Progressive Reform Caucus to pay for personal expenses such as skydiving and a relative’s college tuition.

Patrick Daley Thompson (11th) – 2022
Convicted of two counts of lying to regulators and five counts of filing false income tax returns by a jury that deliberated about three-and-a-half hours. Afterward, one juror told the Sun-Times she’d never heard of the Daley family before the trial and still wasn’t sure who they were.