EV targeted?
Wednesday, Aug 16, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller
Yikes.
Former Chicago Ald. Edward R. Vrdolyak, the charismatic bad boy of Chicago politics, is the target of a federal grand jury investigation, sources have told the Sun-Times.
At least part of the probe is tied to his longtime friendship and business dealings with Stuart Levine, a GOP insider cooperating with the federal government in two high-profile investigations.
Facing significant prison time, Levine decided in recent months to talk to investigators, sources say, and agreed to wear a wire. Sources would not say whether Levine recorded Vrdolyak, but they did say Levine has provided investigators with potentially incriminating information on Vrdolyak.
The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not elaborate on the nature of the probe against Vrdolyak, 68, a onetime Democratic chairman who switched to the Republican party and once ran for mayor as an independent.
Let’s not get too outrageous in the comments section on this one, OK? I have better things to do today than babysit this post. Thanks.
- VanillaMan - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 9:33 am:
Fast Eddie is 68, so he has slowed down enough for his past actions to catch up with him. He was a lot of fun and really represented his district with charisma. He was THE MAN for over a decade and had a lot of political panderers around him looking for scraps. One of them was a kid named Rod Blagojevich, who befriended the Vrdolyak brothers and hung around Fast Eddie and his family, shooting hoops and schmoozing.
But then Fast Eddie crashed and Rod moved on to Dick Mell. Then he married Mell’s daughter. Then he started running for political offices, and now he is governor. Too bad Rod didn’t stay loyal to Fast Eddie. Also how ironic that both Fast Eddie and Rod are under investigations. I guess the basketball doesn’t bounce all that far from the hoop, does it?
- Chinaman - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 9:35 am:
So there’s the connection between Rod and Levine. I wondered why Rod kept Levine. Rod will not admit it but he and fast Eddie are close, very close, long, and I mean long time buddies.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 10:14 am:
Rich -
Just a reminder, as you earlier noted, Sneed tells us that one of the folks Levine wired was a former Chicago alderman.
Now, that could obviously be alot of people, but it seems like a big coincidence to me.
I think the feds have probably always considered Vrdolyak “the one that got away,” especially in the Maltese case. If they’ve got him on tape, they must be giggly.
- Boone Logan Square - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 10:16 am:
Somewhere, Harold Washington is chuckling.
- HANKSTER - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 10:26 am:
Do we really need sources to confirm that Eddie V. is under investigation?
- Pat Hickey - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 10:36 am:
I always got a huge kick out of Ed Vrdolyak. He’s tough and brilliant and a great custodian of his neighbors needs. He is complex, witty, and usually ten years ahead of his competition. Bad guy to cross a great guy in your corner.
My favorite Ed Vrdolyak story is one that includes the man today grabbing headlines and hot-type out of obscurity - Rev. Walter ‘Slim’ Coleman.
Slim Coleman, more than any community activist did more for Harold Washington’s voter drive, especially in Uptown, in his run for Mayor. Like all coomunity activists, Slim expected a ribbon and garter in the Washington Administration. Harold was way too smart for that. Slim used street theatre.
He brought his ‘mobilized crowd’to the Chicago City Council over some ‘earth shattering and world-bettering’ issue, now long forgotten - like Slim.
Slim decided to get physical with the Pigs. After shouting for the Media, Coleman vaulted over some barrier in order to physically intimidate Alderman, so many with the courage of gnats and the back-bones of al dente linguini.
Instead, Slim found himself face-to-face with a smiling Darth Vrdolyak who gestured lovingly and cooed ‘Come on, Sweetheart!’
Ol’ Slim’s bowels turned to water and backed into the embrace of yeomen with a standard - ‘Let me at Him’ supplication. Eddie did not move and waited and waited and waited.
Slim’s retreat was not lost on anyone, but the reporters who could not find a Chinaman on 22nd Street. Slim faded into obscurity.
I wonder if our news-sleuths will dig up this true-life tale of progressive action. I doubt it. Slim’s a Rev. now and fighting the Gee. Compared to Ed Vrdolyak they are a pack of Nancys.
Thanks for the memory jolt. And thank you Mr.V. Perhaps, Slim could have used some time on the playgrounds of Annunciata!
Feds should pack a big lunch.
- In EV's Corner - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 10:48 am:
I agree with Hickey.
EV is simply a STUD.
Good luck G…You’re gonna need it.
Michael Monico, EV’s attorney, represented the only lawyer acquitted in the Operation Greylord prosecutions in Chicago, an undercover operation that targeted corrupt judges and lawyers.
EV came to play.
- irishpirate - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 11:16 am:
Ed Vdrolyak is a “great custodian of his neighbors needs.”???
That is funny. Seems to me is all he ever really cared about was money and power…………and only power in so much as it could bring him money.
As for him standing up to Coleman………one street thug standing up to another..as for Coleman he always struck me as nothing but a street punk hiding behind leftist rhetoric.
Vdrolyak may be brilliant by the low standards of local politics but that does not mean he is or was good.
As for using the phrase “pack of Nancys” that is funny. Considering how you two cooed over the brilliance of Fast Eddie and his use of the word “sweetheart” I was kinda thinking you might want to be the fast ones sweethearts. Do your hearts skip a beat while you think about him?
Ask the taxpayers of Cicero what they think of his fastness. If the feds nail him it will be a good day for justice. Maybe they can even get his former playmate Slick Eddie Burke. Me may even be more reprehensible than the fast one.
Toodles sweethearts, I will talk to you later after you get your hair and nails done.
ARRRRRRRRRRRRGH
- Truthful James - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 12:26 pm:
Eddie the V was great street theater and awesome copy, personal injury lawyer with the contacts to make a settlement possible and the chutzpah to know that point at which the costs of settlement are about equal to the cost of litigation, and of course, the eminence grise in Cicero, pulling Betty’s strings and collecting mucho dinero.
It will be good to have his blather once more. If tried, it should be a doozy of an affair. Of all the fallen political crooks as well as those who shall fall, Fast Eddie is the least likely to throw up the names of others.
Sure, he and others who appear most reverent in the face of plain white envelopes filled and on their desks were paid “fees” for their favors.
Sure. it was old time politics. That’s the way things moved. There was a time when I believed that — for instance — the Dan Ryan was paved with cottage cheese, with the potholes requiring repaving so often. The Irish mafia and the construction contractors struck gold again.
Yet there were rules and when Harold became Mayor that was the end of the simpler times for the members of the new minority group. He knew it and took his leave, dived into the Republican pool and found no fish there, and went back to earn a lawyer’s living.
- Pat Hickey - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 12:56 pm:
Mr. Pirate,
LMAO! You are a Caution!
- Garp - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 1:39 pm:
Vrodo was always too smart for his own good. Kinda like the Enron smartest guys in the room deal. He was Chairman of the Dems and decides to be a Repub because he couldn’t deal with Harold-Then Harold dies and he is left out in the cold. Then Daley slaps him around so he sculks off to small suburbs where he can wet his beak. He really is a slimy SOB. A black cat with many lives.
I think he and Blogo share the same ethnic heritage which may explain their bond.
- R.I.P. McMurphee - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 2:34 pm:
Garp, Vrdolyak and Blagojevich may share many things but not ethnic heritage: one is Croatian and the other Serbian.
- in deep STU do - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 2:37 pm:
isn’t EV and Stu very, I mean VERY close with Million Dollar Baby Tommy Rosenberg????
- HANKSTER - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 2:58 pm:
I wonder how long until John Pavich is asked to return the $2,000 he got from the Vrdolyaks.
- Disgusted - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 4:43 pm:
Milarod and Fast Eddie - two members of the eastern European mafia. I thought that since he got his wife a judgeship, Eddie would retire and live off his stealings, along with her nice salary. Guess it’s hard for those “well-known” types to stay out of the limelight. Hopefully, Rod’s ship is sinking, as Eddie’s is, even as we write.
- Truthful James - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 5:04 pm:
Wasn’t that Eddie B that got the Supreme Court judgeship for his wife Anne. You can tell them apart. Eddie B is kempt.
- Snidely Whiplash - Wednesday, Aug 16, 06 @ 6:32 pm:
I’ve heard this too many times over the years to put any stock into it. The man has been “disciplined” by the Supreme Court several times for violations that would cost most lawyers their license; Eddy V. got a few slaps on the wrist. Betty M. and half the Cicero crew go to the bighouse, Eddy’s not even charged.
Let’s face it: some people are too connected and powerful to actually face prosecution. You can only seriously believe that Eddy V. will be indicted if you believe that Daley or Ed Burke will be indicted. Fat chance.
- HappyToaster - Thursday, Aug 17, 06 @ 10:18 am:
He should have taken the shoeboxes full of cash, retired to FLA 10 years ago and saved everyone the trouble.