Three kings who've ruled American empires for decades see their reigns ending or in doubt: Sheldon Silver under sentence, Eddie Burke under indictment, and Mike Madigan under a cloud.
As accusations against them suggest, they nearly perfected the art of the shakedown by exploiting the power of their positions, but may have pushed the practice too far.
Jurors in U.S. district court at New York convicted former State Assembly Speaker Silver on corruption charges twice.
After the first conviction, in 2015, Second Circuit appellate judges ordered District Judge Valerie Caponi to try him again.
Jurors convicted him again in 2018, and Caponi sentenced him for seven years. Second Circuit judges vacated some convictions but affirmed those for extortion, wire fraud, and engaging in transactions involving crime proceeds.
They ordered Caponi to sentence him again, and in July she sentenced him for six and a half years.
Grand jurors in Northern Illinois district court indicted former City of Chicago finance committee chairman, Alderman Burke, last year on charges of bribery, extortion, interference with commerce, and unlawfully accepting property of another.
U.S. District Judge Robert Dow might hold trial next summer but hasn’t set a date due to uncertainty about the virus.
Burke continues serving as alderman but no longer leads the finance committee.
Illinois House Speaker Madigan squeezed electric utility Commonwealth Edison to employ his allies, pick their sons and daughters as interns, and retain a law firm for little purpose, Com Ed has admitted to federal prosecutors.
Com Ed stated that its contractors passed $1,324,500 along to subcontractors who performed no work and whose names didn’t appear on Com Ed accounts.
Com Ed agreed to pay a $200 million penalty, and U.S. attorney John Lausch agreed to defer criminal prosecution for three years.
Madigan continues serving as Speaker. He’s 78 years old. Silver and Burke are 76.
A letter to Silver’s judge illuminates the practical application of royal rule.
Lawyer Peter Gleason of Mahopac, N.Y. recommended no jail time and wrote, “We are all to blame for allowing the defendant to reign unchecked for decades.”
As a police officer in 1984, he was assigned to the Seventh Precinct on the lower east side of Manhattan, he wrote. His partner warned him that Silver ran the lower east side below Delancey Street and that he fixed tickets and voided arrests.
“One evening my partner and I arrested a high level member of the notorious Chinatown gang, the Ghost Shadows," he wrote.
The gangster shared insight into relations between Silver and Chinatown rackets and a massive criminal enterprise, and that he shared it with the district attorney but it fell on deaf ears, he wrote.
In 1986, with the fire department, he answered a call for a strong odor of gasoline in an apartment building, he wrote. In the caller’s apartment he found an odor but no gasoline. He entered a grocery store below the apartment and found a roll of paper towels wet with gasoline in a dish with a candle nearby, he wrote.
Fire marshals “quickly stood down when the store owner showed up and stated he needed to call Shelly," he wrote.
He ran for New York city council and Silver’s aide Judy Rapfogel did everything in her power to undermine his campaign, he wrote.
He uncovered corruption in a nonprofit her husband administered, and she was ultimately convicted.
After the Daily News carried his claim of corruption, Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice attacked him, he wrote.
Silver controlled a large swatch of public funds for projects of an extensive nonprofit that Barrett’s wife ran, he wrote.
Barrett claimed to investigate malfeasance of Ed Koch, Donald Trump, and Rudy Giuliani, yet gave no scrutiny whatsoever to Silver, he wrote.