Tim Novak
Watchdogs reporter
Tim Novak is an investigative reporter exposing government corruption in the state of Illinois, Cook County and the city of Chicago. His stories include a four-year investigation into a homicide that led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, resulting in Mayor Daley’s nephew pleading guilty to manslaughter in 2014. A six-month investigation in 2004 brought down Daley’s Hired Truck program, in which city agencies spent $40 million on private trucking companies owned by mobsters and politically connected insiders that were often paid to do nothing. The ensuing federal investigation ended with the indictments of 49 people, including 29 city employees.
A Sun-Times analysis finds that thousands of scofflaws — many from the suburbs — have dodged city debts over the years, depriving City Hall of a massive sum of money as Mayor Brandon Johnson faces steep budget challenges.
They’re looking at ties between a dumpster company, owned by James W. Bracken III, and a former city official who was on the bank’s board, the Sun-Times has learned.
A campaign aide calls it an “oversight” and says $46,500 is being returned, agreeing that the ethics rule is “a sound and necessary policy to ensure a fair government.”
A month after Edward H. Gobbo got out of bankruptcy, Washington Federal Bank for Savings CEO John F. Gembara starting giving him loans of millions, records show. When the bank went bust, Gobbo or his immediate family owed more than $3.8 million on 27 residential loans, some of them years overdue.
Washington Federal Bank for Savings customers had no idea the high interest rates that attracted them were feeding the fraud. The bank’s “smooth operators” lured them in, the daughter of one victim says.
Still unknown is whether the Blue Island Democrat will be called to testify at the upcoming trial of his longtime ally, former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan.
Marek Matczuk, who said he did odd jobs for Washington Federal Bank for Savings and its employees, was given the money on orders of the late bank chief John F. Gembara.
Until a colleague spotted an announcement, John Sudduth was the full-time chief information officer for both the county Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and a nonprofit medical board.
Albert M. Friedman will get more than $16.5 million in rent and a $330,000 management fee under his four-year lease, obtained by the Sun-Times. Bally’s also must pay a property tax bill that’s topped $1.1 million a year.