COOK COUNTY COMMISSIONER WILLIAM BEAVERS INDICTED ON FEDERAL TAX CHARGES FOR ALLEGEDLY FAILING TO PAY TAXES ON CAMPAIGN FUNDS AND COUNTY EXPENSE ACCOUNT USED FOR PERSONAL PURPOSES
CHICAGO — Cook County Commissioner William Beavers was indicted today on federal tax charges for allegedly obstructing the Internal Revenue Service and failing to report, and pay taxes on, all of his income. Beavers allegedly concealed his under-reporting of income and underpayment of taxes on thousands of dollars that he converted to personal use from his campaign accounts – including more than $68,000 in personal gain on one occasion that was not reported – as well as from his county discretionary spending account. Between 2006 and 2008, Beavers allegedly paid himself more than $225,000 from three separate campaign accounts and used at least a portion of those funds for personal purposes, including gambling. In 2006, he used more than $68,000 from a campaign account to boost his city pension, and between 2006 and 2008, he used his $1,200 monthly county contingency account for personal purposes without reporting any of these funds as income on his federal tax returns, the indictment alleges.
Beavers, 77, of Chicago, was charged with one count of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct and impede the IRS and three counts of filing false federal income tax returns in a four-count indictment that was returned today by a federal grand jury, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Alvin Patton, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division in Chicago; and Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Beavers, who was elected to the Cook County Board of Commissioners, representing the 4th District, in November 2006 and began serving as a commissioner a month later, will be ordered to appear for arraignment on a date to be determined in U.S. District Court. Previously, Beavers served as the 7th Ward alderman on Chicago’s City Council from 1983 until November 2006, when he was elected to the commissioner’s post.
“If politicians choose to use their campaign funds for personal use then they, like all the citizens they serve, share the obligation to honestly report their income and pay the correct amount of taxes,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “The indictment alleges that over a course of three years, Commissioner Beavers repeatedly used his campaign accounts for personal use and then thwarted the Internal Revenue Service by causing his campaign committees to create false records to cover it up.”
Mr. Patton of the IRS said, “When public officials raise money for political campaigns and use those funds for personal expenses, they must report it as income and pay taxes. A system of government, like ours, which depends on its citizens’ voluntarily compliance with tax laws, is undermined when elected officials shirk their tax responsibilities.”
According to the indictment, Beavers had sole authority over three campaign committees that supported his political activities – Citizens for Beavers, Friends of William Beavers, also known as Friends for William Beavers, and 7th Ward Democratic Organization. As part of the corrupt endeavor to obstruct the IRS, Beavers allegedly converted campaign funds for his own personal use, provided false information to his campaign treasurers regarding the use of these funds, and understated his income and the taxes he owed in his individual income tax returns for 2006, 2007 and 2008.
During those three years, Beavers caused his campaign committees to issue checks payable to himself and to third parties on his behalf, and he allegedly used at least part of the proceeds for personal expenses, including an unspecified amount for gambling. The checks included approximately 100 payable to Beavers personally, totaling about $96,000 in 2006, $69,300 in 2007, and $61,000 in 2008, for a total of approximately $226,300.
As part of the corrupt endeavor, the indictment alleges that Beavers concealed his personal use of campaign funds by maintaining and causing campaign workers to maintain records that falsely reflected the uses of campaign checks payable to Beavers, including records used to prepare semi-annual Illinois campaign finance reports known as D-2s. Beavers caused campaign workers to falsely record, on check stubs and other records, that certain campaign checks written to him and used for personal purposes were instead used for campaign expenses, the charges allege.
In some instances, Beavers allegedly attempted to conceal his use of campaign funds for personal use by telling campaign workers that checks payable to and cashed by him were for paying campaign-related expenses, even though those expenses were not incurred by the campaign committees until months after Beavers had converted the funds. In other instances, Beavers withheld from his campaign staff any explanation of certain checks payable to him, or he caused workers to falsely record that certain checks were “void” or unused even though he had cashed them.
The indictment alleges that on Nov. 14, 2006, Beavers caused a check for $68,763.07 to be paid from Citizens for Beavers to the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago, a pension plan for certain City of Chicago employees including Aldermen, to increase his monthly pension from $2,890 to $6,541. The check allegedly was for personal use and should have been, but was not, reported as income on his 2006 income tax return.
Beginning in December 2006 when he began serving as a county commissioner, through November 2008, Beavers received $1,200 a month from Cook County in the form of a Commissioner Contingency Account (CCA) check for discretionary use. Any personal use of these funds was reportable as income, according to the indictment. Beavers allegedly used the total of $28,800 for personal purposes without reporting any of the funds as income on tax returns.
The three counts of filing false tax returns allege that Beavers failed to include unspecified gross income from his campaign committees and county account when he reported the following amounts of total income and taxable income on his federal returns for 2006 - 2008:
$208,561 total income and $98,453 taxable income for 2006;
$487,568 total and $204,228 taxable for 2007; and
$300,408 total and $171,507 taxable for 2008.
Each count of the indictment carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $250,000 fine and restitution is mandatory. In addition, defendants convicted of tax offenses must pay the costs of prosecution and remain liable for any and all back taxes, as well as a civil fraud penalty of 75 percent of the underpayment plus interest. If convicted, the Court must impose a reasonable sentence under federal statutes and the advisory United States Sentencing Guidelines.
The government is being represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Matthew Getter and Samuel B. Cole.
The public is reminded that an indictment contains only charges and is not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Wow.
- OneMan - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 1:49 pm:
I guess he is now the Hog With The Big Legal Issues
- Ron Burgundy - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 1:57 pm:
Or the Hog in the Pen.
- Arthur Andersen - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 1:58 pm:
Way to live up to the nickname, Commissioner. Too bad for you that you crossed the only guy in Cook County more deserving of that moniker.
And while we’re reforming pensions, the little tweak that lets aldermen apparently more than double their pension by plunking down less than a year’s payments has to go.
But then again, Bobby “Spinner” Molaro may have flagged that in the 11-page treatise he wrote for Eddie Burke in order to spike his pension.
- 47th Ward - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 1:59 pm:
You beat me to it OneMan. Well played sir.
- Shock & Awww(e) - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:07 pm:
Good riddance. Hogs belong in a pen.
- Louie - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:11 pm:
As Captain Louis Renault in Casablance stated” I’m shocked, there is gambling going on here”, as he was handed his winnings, while closing down the night club.
I’m shocked, we don’t see more of this out of Chicago/Cook County rated the most corrupt city in the USA.
- IrishPirate - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:11 pm:
I’d like to remind everyone that Commissioner Beavers is innocent until proven to be Bill Beavers.
These pols never learn do they.
- Just sayin' - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:12 pm:
We’re just working on making sure we hold the top spot in the 2012 Most Corrupt City in the nation. We should get a trophy… perhaps a steaming pile on a pedastal.
- Northsider - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:17 pm:
As all of Oregon laughs into its collective pint of Bridgeport…
- Anon - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:17 pm:
The stupidity amazes me. At least TRY and deny it! Don’t think he has, but so far all I have seen is “well they only indicted me because I wouldn’t wear a wire”.
- Wensicia - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:23 pm:
Well, he’s now the pig in the pokey.
- Jake From Elwood - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:25 pm:
How long would that confession take?
Also, I couldn’t find a decent list of indicted Illinois public officials on the Google. Anyone know of such a link?
- Just sayin' - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:28 pm:
“Billy Beavers Refuses to Kiss and Tell” News at 7.
- Shock & Awww(e) - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:33 pm:
In a 2010 Trib. article, Beavers says he used the $1,200 monthly allowances on personal expenses until 2008 and paid taxes on them.
There were no prohibitions governing the use of those expense allowances until May 2009.
How many other Commissioners did the same thing and spent all or part of the $1,200 month on personal use? How many of them paid taxes on that as personal income?
Beavers definitely wasn’t the only one doing so at the time according to media reports.
A multi-year investigation by the U.S. Atty. resulting in charges 4 years after the fact for tax evasion?
Hope they lock him up for a while. But perhaps there’s more to this coming down the line?
- P. - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:42 pm:
This goof was glad handing on the floor of City Council a couple weeks back, passing out campaign lit for some judge. I hope nobody was posing for pictures … Couldn’t believe it was allowed.
- Leave a Light on George - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:45 pm:
“But perhaps there’s more to this coming down the line?”
This isn’t a serious question is it?
- wordslinger - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:49 pm:
I don’t think I buy the John Daley stuff. Fitz was picking off Daley buffers left and right for years, then seemed to pull up short when he was getting awfully close. Why? Maybe Fitz will write a book, lol.
Still, is Beavers the Big Dog (excuse me, Hog)? Prosecution moves upstream, until it doesn’t. I’m always curious as to why it stops.
My favorite is Burke’s guy who was convicted, did time, and promised to cooperate in Operation Haunted Hall.
The clear implication was that the federales were after Burke. He never went down. But a lot of others did. Curious.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 2:55 pm:
–All Daleys’ care not for money…only power, control, and notoriety…Fitz is barking up wrong tree!!!!!–
Friends and family have done quite while, as far as money goes.
The old line from Tom Keene on the old man was that “Daley wanted power, I wanted money. We both got what we wanted.”
Keene had a short play, Daley a long one. How many Keene’s are making money off his former power now? How many Daley family and friends?
- OneMan - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:01 pm:
Perhaps a new play on a classic Illinois political quote…
Pigs get fed, Hogs end up dealing with the feds
- Chris - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:08 pm:
“A multi-year investigation by the U.S. Atty. resulting in charges 4 years after the fact for tax evasion?”
quoting from 1040.com:
“How long do I have to file an amended return?
As a rule, you must file your 1040X within three years from the date you filed your return, or two years from the date you paid the tax, whichever is later.”
Can’t indict him for failure to report income until his time for amending lapses. If they did, he just amends them, as is his right, pays the taxes, interest and penalty, and there’s nothing indictable.
Assuming he filed for an extension in 2008, his amendment by right lapsed on Oct 15, 2011. So, really, it’s only 4 *months* after the last alleged crime.
- Boone's is Back - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:10 pm:
I believe the quote is pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. `
- OneMan - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:11 pm:
Yeah Boone, I know the original…
- ChicagoDem - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:13 pm:
I guess this one Hog ain’t going “to market.”
- Chris - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:14 pm:
Oh, and to get all technical, BB is now the big barrow. And PatFitz has nuts to pickle.
- anonymice - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:26 pm:
==Can’t indict him for failure to report income until his time for amending lapses.==
Not true. For one thing, there is no time limit for amending returns to report more tax. The stuff you quote is for claiming refunds. Also, for the money taken for personal use in 2008, the return was due in 2009 and the 3-year period for filing an amended return hasn’t expired yet, so by your lights, they’ve jumped the gun.
- Arthur Andersen - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:30 pm:
@Chris @ 3:14; is that you, Niewoehner?
- Chris - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:36 pm:
” for the money taken for personal use in 2008, the return was due in 2009 and the 3-year period for filing an amended return hasn’t expired yet, so by your lights, they’ve jumped the gun. ”
Bah, you’re right of course. Just overexcited to see the swine get what he so so richly deserves.
But, seriously, doesn’t he just go “oops, you’re right, what’s the amount I owe?” and avoid the criminal penalty? He has a more-plausible-than-Wesley-Snipes basis for just saying “thought it was excluded from ‘income’”, doens’t he?
AA: “is that you, Niewoehner?”
Nope, sorry.
- whetstone - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:43 pm:
/But, seriously, doesn’t he just go “oops, you’re right, what’s the amount I owe?”/
IANATL, but maybe 2010, when news broke that the feds were investigating him, would have been the time to settle up.
Beavers told the S-T today that he never took his commissioner’s allowance. Sheesh.
- Bill F - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:45 pm:
Perhaps he was working with the FBI’s vaunted Department of Jesse.
- Davey Boy Smithe - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:47 pm:
That’s a pretty sweet deal if all you need to do is write a check for $68,763.07 to increase your pension by $43,812 a year.
- mark walker - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:51 pm:
Hmm Who got to wear the wire?
- Tim - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 3:53 pm:
Jake From Elwood: Wikipedia has a category devoted to convicted politicians, including a single subcategory for Illinois governors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:American_politicians_convicted_of_crimes
- Plutocrat03 - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:01 pm:
And you wonder why Illinois has a low desirability rating.
If found guilty, it took 40 years to get around to prosecuting him….
Did anyone else have a doubt that his behavior as at least a bit over the line?
- Keep it Simple - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:05 pm:
Clay Davis, “The Wire” reference. Nice.
- Ben Gazzara (may he rest in peace) - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:07 pm:
I always wondered about the whole feds go after “daley/burke/madigan and end up getting joe schmo/joe schmo/joe schmo” thing. Wonder if the boys ever vacationed with the Bulger brothers.
- amalia - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:09 pm:
it did not take an indictment to tell anyone who has had to deal with Beavers that he is a high ranking jerk of a person. petty, driven by what his people “deserve,” and just plain mean. yes, indicted does not mean found guilty, but it’s fun to watch the bully squirm.
- anonymice - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:13 pm:
==But, seriously, doesn’t he just go “oops, you’re right, what’s the amount I owe?” and avoid the criminal penalty?==
If they didn’t give him that chance first, it would be the first time since probably Al Capone that they did not.
- Son of a Centrist - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:16 pm:
Taxes aside, I wasn’t even aware that candidates could make personal use their campaign funds. Fitzgerald’s comments suggest they can as long as they pay taxes on the money. Anyone know more about this?
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:17 pm:
Dunno what to say about Bill Beavers …He never kept anything close to the vest is a good start.
He told you what he thought,when he thought it, and if you don’t like what he thought, he didn’t care.
In the past 20 years, you can say Bill Beavers is one of the top 10 political animals in Illinois. It was always under the prism of politics, ALWAYS. He then told you he did something because of the politics, and sometimes, that was the ONLY reason he did something … politics.
Bill is unashamed and unabashed in his politics and his belief in those politics.
A good recipe for “the guys down the street” to want to go after. The Feds love these targets.
Dunno what to say, not apologizing for the man, nor am I going to take him down brick by brick … yet.
Just WOW.
“Heavyweight” going down…
- Franz - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:17 pm:
Anyone who has ever tried having a conversation with Commissioner Daley knows that recording the conversation is pretty much the only way you can understand whatever was said, unsaid, mumbled and blurted in the 4 and a half seconds he gives you his attention.
- Jim - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:31 pm:
One more thing — notice the income Beavers derived from his public service. He’s just one of many getting rich at the public’s expense.
- Davey Boy Smithe - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:34 pm:
This just in: Hammond casinos to lose constant revenue stream.
- Chris - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:36 pm:
“If they didn’t give him that chance first, it would be the first time since probably Al Capone that they did not.”
Sure, and that’s part of why they have the 4th count for “obstruction”–it’s roughly the same thing that Blago got convicted of in the first trial. He lied to the Feds to cover up something for which he could just write a get out of jail check.
As always, the lesson is *never* *ever* talk to the Feds unless you get immunity first (or really, really know what you’re doing). Sad that that is the case.
- wordslinger - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:37 pm:
–And you wonder why Illinois has a low desirability rating.–
I don’t, really. I doubt if the country is waiting on baited breath wondering what will happen to William Beavers.
As someone else pointed out, the most populous state in the country is ranked as the most unpopular. Illinois is the fifth most populous, also unpopular, allegedly.
But everyone LOVES South Dakota, just not enough to live there (I love South Dakota, by the way).
Counter-intuitive, don’t you think?
According to the poll, Republicans’ favorite states are Alaska and Texas (both hugely dependent on federal money and oil, coincidentally) and least favorite are California, by far, followed by Illinois and Massachusetts (what hell-holes,lol).
How about you Pluto? What’s your most desirable state? Country? Century? The here-and-now seems overwhelming to you.
- Arthur Andersen - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:42 pm:
One of the best comment threads in awhile.
- Oswego Willy - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 4:44 pm:
Thought this indictment was under “Operation Slaughterhouse” ….
or …
“Operation Conceal and Spend”
“Operation I Don’t Care”
“Operation Hubris”
“Operation Exact Change Only”
…
- park - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 6:19 pm:
I always like Beavers because he was so honestly, openly politically amoral. Double dipping on city/county pensions? So? using taxpayer money to ensure political support? So? Grabbing as much as he could wherever he could? Why else go through the hassle of getting elected?
When Daley’s guys were going down for political hiring (the HDO issue), he was the one guy to defend the practice. In Beaver’s world that was the spoils from getting elected. He was a Tammany throwback, and totally unapologetic about it. Corrupt but refreshing.
He forgot about the the one issue that is non-racial and non-partisan…taxes.
One final thought….will the Attorney General go after HIS pensions?????
- wordslinger - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 7:29 pm:
AA, glad to see you back in the saddle. Have missed your wit and wisdom immensely. Stick around, my friend, God knows we need it.
I know many enjoy the self-flagellation of pretending that they live now in the worst place in the worst times.
All I can say is: get over yourself, and be thankful that those that came before you set you up, and let’s try to leave it better than we found it.
As far as corruption goes, yes we have it. Always have. Always will (so does every locality in history, too). It’s human nature, and certainly the nature of the original Wild West, which we are all a part of.
Corruption has been around, everywhere, since before Christ was a kid. But, despite our own corruption, what a hell of a grand thing we’ve built since 1818.
My old man, (God rest his soul), the church he was baptized in Norway is 1,000 years old. My mother,(God rest her soul), her family has been picking rocks out of the same fields trying to raise a crop and support livestock for at least 300 years.
But after poverty, Depression and imprisonment by the occupying Nazis, my folks had the guts, good sense and optimism, to come here and start a family, and God bless them for that.
Rome, London, Paris, Delhi, Beijing, Cairo, Moscow, are all more than 2,000 years old
But the corrupt riff-raff of Illinois have in less than 200 years advanced the human condition further and faster than anyone else in history, as leaders in the Midwest and among the Yankees.
Illinois, more than most, built the United States, taking the grain and livestock from the Midwest and shipping it East; taking the lumber from Wisconsin and Michigan to open the breadbasket of the Plains. The Yankee railroads and interstates, and their taxes, opened up the West.
The solemn decency and blood of young men and women from north of the Ohio freed the slaves, and their sacrifice and moral example required us to take the long and hard duty of dragging the racist oligarchs of Dixie kicking and screaming into the 21st Century (they’re happy to be here now; they want to tell us how to run things).
Studs said it best. Chicago and Illinois are like Janus. Al Capone and Jane Addams. Len Small and John Peter Altgeld. Billie Sunday and Mother Cabrini. Two faces.
Algren said it pretty well, too: “Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.”
Keep it real, folks. Keep your nerve, keep slugging and move forward, always.
- Retired Non-Union Guy - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 8:00 pm:
If I was Beavers, I’d have my accountants working on amended returns and pay up as soon as possible. Heck, just file a quick estimated form and pay what the Feds claim and straighten out the actual numbers later.
Then get a good tax lawyer to claim he filed the returns as he understood the law at the time. Yes, Ignorance is no excuse … but a well argued excuse will often get you out of the late penalty. After all, it’s easy to argue that the federal tax code is almost impossible to understand …
- Just Me - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 8:51 pm:
Like these guys need any more money for anything? They never pay a real rent/mortgage, never pay for a meal or a drink, people give them them free stuff all the time….what does he need that money for?
“Satan, your kingdom must come down.
Satan, your kingdom must come down.
I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Satan, your kingdom must come down.”
- Plutocrat03 - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 9:30 pm:
Illinois has a lot going for it, but would be a lot better off than it is now without the corruption tax that exists in every level of government I have encountered. Starting at the Chicago official shaking me down for a bribe many years ago.
Once my business needs are over, I will likely join most of my associates and move to better place. The reality is that the State’s finances crashing will not affect me. The pols will kick the can down the road for a few more years. By then I will be gone. Till then I will fork over my taxes and look for that elusive honest man/woman
- wordslinger - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 10:35 pm:
–Once my business needs are over, I will likely join most of my associates and move to better place.–
Won’t we all. By and by, Lord, by and by. There’s a better, home awaiting, in the sky, Lord, in the sky.
Um, unless you’re talking about the Planet Earth, then I’d be interested in where you’re talking about and what makes it so much better.
But business keeps you here now? Business must be good.
- Quizzical - Thursday, Feb 23, 12 @ 11:22 pm:
Those favors he has to call in from Todd Stroger will come in handy now.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Feb 24, 12 @ 7:02 am:
Well said, wordslinger.
I love the snark, but I love where I love more.
I get it all, I get the farms, I get Chicago, I get the suburbs. No place I would want to be. No place better in the country.
Two faces, indeed.