Feds vow to keep heat on, even though original docket is almost clean, 'public corruption a priority' for U.S. Attorney's office
Post-Tribune (IN)
April 12, 2009
April 12, 2009
HAMMOND -- Federal prosecutors say they will press on with Operation Restore Public Integrity, even as the docket of cases filed in the public corruption investigation is nearly bare.
With the conclusion of a trial involving former Calumet Township Trustee Dozier T. Allen and two former deputies last week, only one defendant faces corruption-related charges in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.
Federal grand juries have handed down more than 40 indictments of public figures since Restore Public Integrity began in 2001. To date, nearly every defendant charged has been convicted or has pleaded guilty -- the only blemish on the U.S. Attorney's record came when charges against three Gary officials were dropped.
U.S. Attorney David Capp, who took over the investigation launched by his predecessor Joseph Van Bokkelen, declined comment on whether more indictments are coming, but said his office will continue to prosecute "crimes where we see them."
"Public corruption is a priority for this office and it will continue to be," said Capp, a longtime staffer who led previous corruption probes.
Public corruption cases have come under scrutiny in other parts of the country. The conviction of Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was thrown out this week at the request of newly appointed Attorney General Eric Holder, after questions about prosecutorial misconduct were raised by defense attorneys.
In 2007, several U.S. Attorneys claimed they were ousted by President George W. Bush, in some cases for investigating Republicans or because they did not respond to pressure from administration officials to pursue misconduct investigations against Democrats.
Holder reportedly met with dozens of U.S. Attorneys this week to urge them to press on with investigations of political figures. Holder began his career as a federal prosecutor in the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section in the mid-1970s.
A change in presidential administration typically means turnover in most federal appointments. Capp, a Democrat, could remain in his post in the Democratic Obama adminstration, but several local Democrats want the job.
FBI agents in recent months have interviewed city employees in East Chicago and subpoenaed records from City Hall, the school district and other government offices in an apparent investigation into Mayor George Pabey 's administration.
That pattern is a familiar prelude to an indictment, though federal investigators have been known to cast a wide net and spend years preparing charges.
Whether Operation Restore Public Integrity has cleaned up Lake County's notoriously larcenous political culture is anyone's guess. Pabey swept into office on a pledge to dismantle the political machine of his predecessor, Robert A. Pastrick, who was crippled politically by Public Integrity indictments of his allies and even one of his sons.
Andrea Lyon, a DePaul University Law School professor who helped defend former Illinois Gov. George Ryan against public corruption charges, says elected officials have a tough case to make once they're indicted.
Since the mid-1990s, case law has broadened the legal definition of honest services fraud, the crime around which federal prosecutors most often build their cases.
Government attorneys must only convince jurors that a politician or public official willfully failed to do their best to do their job honestly and for public benefit. To jurors accustomed to thinking of politicians as oily insiders, political behavior that seems unseemly -- albeit, perhaps, legal -- could land someone in jail.
"When you're part of a despised group, such as our political class, I think it's very hard" to win acquittal, Lyon said.
"Are these cases getting us better government?" she asked. "I don't know that they are."
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