Wednesday, July 23, 2008

07232008 - News Article - Former Schererville judge sentenced - ROBERT CANTRELL



Former Schererville judge sentenced
Indiana Lawyer (Indianapolis, IN)
July 23, 2008
A former town court judge in Lake County received a 15-month federal prison sentence July 10, four years after being indicted and two years after she pleaded guilty to getting kickbacks from more than 1,000 defendants that she'd sentenced to driving school and counseling classes she secretly owned and personally profited from.

U.S. District Judge Philip Simon sentenced former Schererville Town Judge Deborah Riga to prison and also ordered her to pay $12,120 in restitution to the town and state.

She was the second person elected to that town's court and started in 2000. Her plea agreement shows that within a year of taking the bench she set up the driver's education and youth counseling programs and started using her judicial power to mandate criminal offenders attend those classes.

Court records show a similar but unrelated scheme, where Riga had directed employees to change their hours and billing practices so that money normally going to the state and county would instead go to the town, and that the former judge stopped paying rent to the town for court space and had employees working on the township payroll whose wages should have come from a juvenile counseling program fund. At the sentencing hearing, Judge Simon noted she made about $30,000 from that scheme.

Since her indictment in 2004, the federal court granted six continuances and noted in its latest one in June that it would be the last. Part of the reason for delay was that Riga has been cooperating with the federal government in the prosecution of former political ally Robert Cantrell, who was convicted in June of 11 counts of fraud. That helped her get a reduced sentence, as well as the use of more lenient rules that were in place in 2002.

Monday, July 21, 2008

07212008 - News Article - Tax accounting trio unsung heroes in region's public corruption fight - ROBERT CANTRELL



Tax accounting trio unsung heroes in region's public corruption fight
Post-Tribune (IN)
July 21, 2008
If you follow Northwest Indiana's colorful, larcenous political history, you know the names: Operation Bar-Tab, Operation Lights Out, Operation Restore Public Integrity.

By one name or another, federal investigators have taken down elected officials and political players for decades: judges who fixed tickets for cash, mayors who took kickbacks on municipal projects, insiders who took money for the judicious use of clout.

The common thread that binds them, and the one that hung them out to dry, are a trio of tax accountants you've never heard of: Harry Bigda, Paul Drapac and Al Johnson.

For a combined 120 years, the three IRS revenue agents have burrowed through reams of documents like moles in a flower bed, looking for the ill-gotten gains of public officials and their cronies.

Bigda retired in January, Drapac earlier this month, and Johnson -- the senior member of the trio with 42 years -- will wind up his career in August.

"It's a tremendous loss. These three guys have been with me since the first day," said U.S. Attorney David Capp, who led Operation Lights Out in the 1980s and took over Restore Public Integrity this year when he was appointed to replace Joseph Van Bokkelen.

"To me they are the heart of our public corruption efforts, these behind-the-scenes guys, doing the heavy lifting."

Behind-the-scenes doesn't begin to describe the workplace the three shared in the basement of the Hammond federal building, a windowless room stacked with over-stuffed banker's boxes.

The boxes are provided by the more high-profile IRS and FBI special agents, who haul them out of their targets' offices based on tips that are strong enough to get a search warrant from a grand jury. To make a criminal case, revenue agents Johnson, Drapac and Bigda have to sift through mounds of bank statements, canceled checks, tax returns and ledger books to find the evidence.

"With white-collar crime, your case is paper," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Bernie Van Wormer, who worked with all three preparing the fraud case against Gary trucking contractor Jewell Harris Sr.

"Witnesses can testify to what was said and who did what, but a defense attorney can't cross examine a document."

In the days before computer spreadsheets, Bigda recalls hunching over his desk filling in ledger sheets into the wee hours at the old Hammond federal building.

"The only things in there most nights was me and the little rodents," he said.

Among Drapac's final assignments for the IRS was meticulously tabulating data from 10,000 index cards detailing fees paid improperly to political insider Robert Cantrell, who was convicted on 11 counts of fraud and filing false tax returns. The charges that will send Cantrell to prison are fairly benign when compared to the litany of crimes his political rivals have accused him of committing, but they stuck.

"It's just like Al Capone," Drapac said. "Everything he did, and it was taxes that sent him to prison."

While the investigative work might be less dangerous than chasing down mobsters with tommy guns, it can be pure drudgery for some.

"I could not do what they do," said Van Wormer, who began his career as an IRS agent before going to law school. "These guys just really love it. You just put the records in front of them and let them go."

Over the decades, the three suspect there are few schemes to hide illegal income they haven't seen: Swiss bank accounts, shell companies, coffee cans of cash.

"It's solving a puzzle, a financial puzzle," Drapac said.

Drapac and his two fellow agents are difficult to shake on the witness stand, said Bryan Truitt, who cross-examined Drapac at length during the trial of East Chicago Controller Ed Maldonado.

"We went after Paul pretty (good), and he just has such great respect for the system," Truitt said. "He doesn't take it personally, he understands it's just the attorneys doing the best job they can.

"He's a pro, and I have great respect for him, though I may not agree with the underlying figures he uses to come up with his numbers, I don't doubt that he is scrupulous when he adds them up."

Johnson's first corruption case was the investigation of an East Chicago sewer project in the 1970s that led to the indictment of then-Mayor John Nicosia.

The scam's participants laundered their kickbacks through a phony Swiss company, with a contractor making regular trips from Europe with bundles of cash strapped into a vest underneath his clothes.

"Very few people get access to a lot of cash and don't spend it. They're going to get a car, take a trip," Johnson said.

"And they almost always tell someone about it, and those people will talk to us. Girlfriends get mad at you, people get indicted."

The three have lived comfortably on their IRS salaries -- all three confessed to using TurboTax software to do their own taxes -- and they seldom envy the lives of those who have resorted to crime to live beyond their means. Often, a careful review of financial records let's them know their targets better than the targets' own wives.

"If you play by the rules, you only have to tell one version: the truth," Drapac said while sitting with Johnson and Bigda at his retirement party. "The flaw in our character is that we stay on track and stick through it, like a bloodhound.

"I'm going to miss working with these guys."

07212008 - News Article - After trials, one judge changes practices - Court-ordered counseling under scrutiny amid secret financial interests - ROBERT CANTRELL



After trials, one judge changes practices
Court-ordered counseling under scrutiny amid secret financial interests
NWI Times
Jul 21, 2008
nwitimes.com/news/local/after-trials-one-judge-changes-practices/article_9757b204-a805-5e1f-95d6-be6e505dfec4.html
LOWELL | After hearing in recent federal trials about the hijinks involving court-ordered alcohol counseling, Town Court Judge Thomas Vanes decided to stop ordering his defendants to attend sessions at for-profit centers.

"I don't want to be in a position of ordering them to put money in a crony's pocket," Vanes said.

Not that Vanes feared perceptions about whether he was personally helping a "crony" with his own court orders.

Rather, he said after the recent court cases of Robert Cantrell, Deborah Riga and Nancy Fromm, he has grown weary of trying to untangle which firms are associated with various political players across Lake County.

His solution? He now is ordering defendants charged with drunken driving in his court to attend sessions with Alcoholics Anonymous, which are free.

Vanes' decision comes after recent disclosures that former Schererville Town Judge Riga earned about $44,000 by ordering defendants to attend classes in counseling and education businesses in which she had a secret financial interest.

East Chicago political figure Cantrell was convicted of not paying taxes on roughly $150,000 he secretly earned using his political connections to steer court-ordered counseling business to a firm owned by a crony of his.

Fromm, whose counseling business Addiction and Family Care paid Cantrell his untaxed profits in cash, testified last month about the highly political environment in which court-ordered business is regularly doled out.

Fromm told Cantrell's jury that she regularly received business in exchange for political support.

Sometimes she was awarded contracts for her own political activism, and in other cases Cantrell used his influence to convince judges to send defendants to Fromm's firm.

Vanes said he fears the system that Fromm described is not limited to her business alone.

"I've been around awhile, and I've heard various things about the agencies," said Vanes, a former Lake County deputy prosecutor who has been town judge in Lowell since 2000.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

07162008 - News Article - Judge Riga betrayed those she was serving - ROBERT CANTRELL



Judge Riga betrayed those she was serving
Post-Tribune (IN)
July 16, 2008
Judges generally are the ones who impose sentences. That's why it was so significant a week ago when former Schererville town Judge Deborah Riga was the one being sentenced.

Despite her guilt, defense attorney Nick Thiros almost painted Riga as a victim as he asked the judge for leniency. We don't blame Thiros, who is a wise attorney, but we don't want the people to get the wrong impression.

"I remember the day she was sworn in, and it was a very proud day in everybody's life," Thiros said. "And before you know it, all these political hacks were involved."

Riga pleaded guilty to extortion and fraud for funneling fees from defendants she sentenced to a driving school she secretly owned and to demanding kickbacks from a counseling firm that worked with her court.

Despite what Thiros suggested about the influence of the conniving political community in Lake County, Riga clearly was a willing participant.

For the record, U.S. District Judge Philip Simon sentenced Riga to five months in prison, five months of home detention and five months of supervised release. That is not a heavy sentence, and that likely is attributable to the fact Riga testified for the government against political operative Robert Cantrell.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Orest Szewciw asked for a stiffer sentence, saying, "How can any citizen who ever appeared before her ever believe justice was dispensed impartially when the judge had a financial interest" in a defendant's sentence?

While we agree with Szewciw, we understand Simon's sentence, given Riga's cooperation.

We also feel judges, like Riga, should be held to a higher standard. If there is a corrupt judiciary, our system of justice is broken.

Friday, July 11, 2008

07112008 - News Article - Riga gets 15 months in prison - Former judge also must pay $12,120 in restitution - ROBERT CANTRELL



Riga gets 15 months in prison
Former judge also must pay $12,120 in restitution
NWI Times
Jul 11, 2008
nwitimes.com/news/local/riga-gets-months-in-prison/article_e93fa6b2-03dd-56c5-b8e3-29e52dd77f47.html
HAMMOND | The judge is going to jail.

Former Schererville Town Judge Deborah Riga was sentenced Thursday to 15 months in prison -- substantially less time than she could have received for sending more than 1,000 of her defendants into programs from which she personally profited.

Defense attorney Nick Thiros pleaded for less prison time, arguing that the 51-year-old former judge -- his longtime colleague and friend -- was an honest-minded person who allowed herself to be corrupted by "political hacks" all around her.

"She relied on political people to sort of show her the way, and we know that's not right," Thiros said, urging U.S. District Judge Philip Simon to give Riga just five months in prison.

Thiros described Riga as a kind of reformer who came into a town court that had been created as a "political reward" and tried to use it for positive programs that helped youths and senior citizens. More than 30 people wrote letters to the court on her behalf.

Simon didn't buy it.

"This is not the fault of any political hack. This is the result of choices that you made, Ms. Riga, and it amounts to an abdication of your office," the federal judge told the former town judge. "It's really an affront to the citizens who elected you."

In addition to serving about 85 percent of her prison sentence, Riga will pay $12,120 in restitution to Schererville and the state. She was ordered to surrender to prison Sept. 23.

Riga was the second person to be elected town judge in Schererville in 1999. Not long after she took office, she secretly set up driver education and youth counseling programs and began using her power as judge to mandate criminal offenders attend the classes.

At least 1,175 offenders attended the classes, which put $43,920 into her pocket, Assistant U.S. Attorney Orest Szewciw said.

"How can any citizen who appeared before her believe they received an impartial hearing ... when the judge had a financial interest in the very programs to which the defendants were ordered to attend?" Szewciw said.

Riga was eligible for up to four years in prison, but prosecutors agreed to compute her sentence using more lenient rules that were in place in 2002, which decreased her sentence by at least a year.

Another year was taken off the sentence because of her cooperation in the prosecution of former political ally Robert Cantrell, who was convicted last month of 11 counts of fraud.

Riga now lives in Florida, working on a management training program.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

07102008 - News Article - Former S'ville judge to be sentenced today - Riga eligible for leniency for her role in Cantrell case - ROBERT CANTRELL



Former S'ville judge to be sentenced today
Riga eligible for leniency for her role in Cantrell case
NWI Times
Jul 10, 2008
nwitimes.com/news/local/former-s-ville-judge-to-be-sentenced-today/article_5f882c6e-6a2b-571e-ab81-a85652f02a14.html
HAMMOND | Exactly 25 months after Deborah Riga pleaded guilty to using her judicial powers to enrich herself, the former town judge is set to learn her prison sentence today.

Riga was the second person ever elected town judge of Schererville, but her second term in office was stopped short after she was indicted on multiple counts of mail fraud.

Riga is eligible for a more lenient prison sentence because she cooperated extensively in the criminal investigation of East Chicago political fixer Robert Cantrell.

Cantrell was convicted last month of 11 counts of fraud. In court filings Monday, prosecutors said Riga's testimony was essential during the trial. In particular, Riga testified that Cantrell spoke openly about receiving cash kickbacks in exchange for arranging government contracts.

At trial, Cantrell defense attorney Kevin Milner made much of the fact that prosecutors did not have a direct financial trail linking Cantrell to the alleged payments.

That was because Cantrell took so many of the payments in cash, prosecutors and witnesses said.

Riga hired Cantrell's favored firm, Addiction and Family Care, in exchange for cash payments to counsel defendants in the Schererville court. She said Cantrell talked openly about getting cash kickbacks from the deal.

Riga pleaded guilty in June 2006 to a similar but unrelated scheme in which she used her judicial powers to force youthful defendants to attend driving and counseling classes at businesses she controlled.

She eventually made about $30,000 in profits through the scheme. The $12,000 left in her accounts when she was indicted is likely to be forfeited to the government, Assistant U.S. Attorney Orest Szewciw said in 2006.

Szewciw wrote Monday that Riga began cooperating in the Cantrell investigation just a month after pleading guilty.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

07062008 - News Article - 'Our Family Is Broken' Cold-case closure sought in drive-by shooting



'Our Family Is Broken'
Cold-case closure sought in drive-by shooting 
Post-Tribune (IN)
July 6, 2008 
Last Sept. 16, as Mexican Independence Day came to a close, a sleepy-eyed Benita Alonzo shuffled off to bed. 

As she does every night before calling it a day, Alonzo paused near a makeshift shrine in her East Chicago home. 

There, photographs of her children and grandchildren share sacred space with a crucifix, votive candles, and hallowed religious items. There, she said a prayer in all their names. 

But on this Sunday night, her ritual was interrupted by the sound of gunshots in her neighborhood. 

Knowing it wasn't merely celebratory fireworks, the 83-year-old Catholic believer whispered one additional prayer, for the victim of the gunfire. 

A few hours later, she learned that the victim was her grandson, Rene Alonzo . 

The 33-year-old father of two was gunned down in a drive-by shooting outside a bar near his grandmother's home. He died in his girlfriend's arms. 

Police suspect it's a fatal case of mistaken identity involving his signature New York Yankees cap, or that he was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time. But the months-long cold case has since frozen into icy injustice for the grieving family. 

That's why they agreed to this column, and why they're posting a $10,000 reward for the conviction of the killer. 

"We simply want someone to come forward and tell the truth about that night," said Stacey Alonzo , Rene 's sister. "Our family is broken." 

READ JERRY DAVICH TO LEARN MORE ABOUT RENE ALONZO , PAGE A3 
Caption: Stacey Alonzo brings fresh flowers and neatens the gravestone of her older brother Rene Alonzo at Chapel Lawn Memorial Gardens in Schererville.(PHOTO - Color) (STEPHANIE DOWELL/POST-TRIBUNE) Rene Alonzo , 33, a father of two, was gunned down in a drive-by shooting outside a bar near his grandmother's East Chicago home on Sept. 16 >>(PHOTO - Color) 

07062008 - News Article - Family hopes $10,000 warms cold case



Family hopes $10,000 warms cold case
Post-Tribune (IN)
July 6, 2008
On the night of his death, Rene Alonzo stopped by his grandmother's East Chicago home for no other reason than to say hello and leave her with his trademark smile. 

"Take care of yourself," he told her. 

Then Alonzo and his long-time girlfriend, Erica Badillo, ventured into the night to celebrate Mexican Independence Day at nearby E.J. Block Stadium. 

Together for nine years, Alonzo called her "Chunks," and Badillo called him "Babe." 

The two became an item in 1998, after Badillo's brother, and Alonzo 's best friend, died. With plans on getting married someday soon, and a two-carat ring to prove it, Alonzo and Badillo lived in Griffith with their two children, ages 8 and 2. 

That Sunday night, after the festivities ended at Block Stadium, a friend of theirs asked for a ride to a nearby bar in the city's Harbor neighborhood. 

Alonzo agreed. It ended up costing him his life. 

Around 10:30 p.m., as Alonzo stood with a group of patrons outside the U.S. Sports Bar, at 3948 Alder St., a red van drove past. A person from inside the vehicle opened fire into the crowd, wounding Richard Perez, 24, in the legs. 

Alonzo wasn't as fortunate. He was shot in the head and chest. 

Erica Badillo heard the shots from inside the bar, ran to the parking lot, and saw Alonzo on the ground, his face bleeding. She rushed to him and cradled him. 

" Rene died in my arms," she recalled. "All I could do was just hold him tight. I didn't want to let him go." 

Bystanders circled around the couple until police arrived and pulled her away from his lifeless body. He was pronounced dead at the scene. 

"They would not let me hold him any more," Badillo said. "All I could do is cry and just look at him lying there without me." 

The family prankster 
Rene Anthony Alonzo was a church altar boy, a Little League ballplayer, the family prankster, and an unsuspecting fashion plate. He liked brand-name clothes, jewelry, and shoes, especially if it involved his beloved New York Yankees. 

Usually the quiet observer in the corner of a party, he also enjoyed giving nicknames to loved ones, just as his father called him "Pooh" when Alonzo was a boy. 

After high school, Alonzo began working with his father through the International Association of Heat & Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, Local 17, in Chicago. He continued until his death with his older brother, Ricky Alonzo , of Crown Point. 

The Alonzos eventually moved out of the Harbor section of the city, into safer communities like Schererville, Crown Point and Griffith. But Rene routinely returned to his old stomping grounds, often to visit his grandmother. 

"Family was very important to Rene ," explained Rich Alonzo of Schererville, Rene 's father. "He seemed to keep us all together." 

After moving to Griffith, Rene became a member of St. Mary's Church, watching his children's baptisms and first communions. He didn't attend regular church services, but "only when he had to," Badillo said. 

Instead, he worshiped his 8-year-old daughter, a petite princess, and his 2-year-old son, who is just beginning to ask about his missing father. 

Through the years he helped get his friends good jobs through the union as laborers, even if other friends who turned to the Harbor's streets were jealous of his lifestyle, Badillo said. 

"He loved to dress nice, keeping up with fashion," she said. "Whatever he wanted, he had to have it." 

It's doubtful whether that jealousy or his lifestyle had anything to do with his death, his family says. And they simply can't grasp why he would be the target of a drive-by shooting. 

"Never in my lifetime did I think I would bury my brother due to gunshots," his sister said. 

"Wrong place, wrong time," one of his cousins told me. 

Cold case, icy injustice 
Last winter, Badillo and the couple's two young kids built a snowman to look like Alonzo , complete with a Yankees cap and jokester's smile. 

Deep down, Badillo dreamed that Rene would return to life as a snowman, like in the movie "Jack Frost." In that film, which premiered the same year Alonzo and Badillo became a couple, Michael Keaton portrayed a father who dies in a car accident and returns one year later as a snowman. 

But Badillo's snowman eventually melted, along with her childlike hopes, and Alonzo 's cold case only turned more frigid. 

The family has since made repeated efforts to get information from East Chicago police, but has received nothing in return. I also tried contacting the department for this column and have yet to receive a reply. 

The family also has contacted the Lake County Sheriff's Police, the Indiana State Police, the FBI, and even East Chicago Mayor George Pabey for insights into the investigation. They're still waiting for an update of any kind. 

"They're probably assuming that Rene was a gangbanger so they don't care about his death," one family member told me. 

"But Rene did not have a police record, and he was not an enemy to anyone on these streets," said his younger sister, Stacey. 

Police initially told the family that it may have been a case of mistaken identity, noting Rene 's long-time fashion statement of wearing a New York Yankees cap. 

The family also was told that two suspects were initially taken into custody for the killing, but they had to be released after 48 hours due to lack of charges against them. 

Still, the family wonders why no witnesses were detained or interviewed at the scene, and they wonder how many other warm-blooded homicides in their hometown have turned into cold-as-a-morgue police investigations. 

More importantly, they are still fearful for their own safety. 

"The killer -- or killers -- are still out there," said Rene 's mother, Patricia Herrera, when I recently met with the extended family. 

To put a flame under Rene Alonzo 's cold case, the family is posting a $10,000 reward to whomever comes forward with information leading to an arrest and conviction. 

"We want justice," his father told me. 

"We want closure," his mother added. 

"Money talks," one relative whispered to me as I walked away. 

Caption: Stacey Alonzo visits the graveside of her older brother, Rene Alonzo , near a bench the family had made in his honor at Chapel Lawn Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Schererville.(PHOTO) (STEPHANIE DOWELL/POST-TRIBUNE) Alonzo (PHOTO)