This just in… Fast Eddie gets 10 months
Friday, Oct 15, 2010 - Posted by Rich Miller
* 3:13 pm - Legendary Chicago politician Ed Vrdolyak will have to serve 10 months in prison and then another 10 months in confinement, five months of work release and then another five months of home confinement.
From the Sun-Times…
“It was a very serious and sophisticated crime by sophisticated people who were able to pull the wool over other sophisticated people,” U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly said. He added though that Vrdolyak led a life of good works.
“This has been a very long and very difficult ordeal for everyone,” Vrdolyak, 72, said of his role in a real estate scheme. “I’m sorry. I made a stupid mistake . . . it was dumb, it was stupid and I was wrong.”
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly listened to Vrdolyak’s address as well as arguments from prosecutors in Vrdolyak’s resentencing hearing for about 90 minutes. […]
Kennelly has the case now after an appeals court ruled in January in a stinging decision that the probation-only penalty Vrdolyak first got in February 2009 for the crime was inappropriate.
The decision blasted U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur for sentencing Vrdolyak to five years of probation, including community service, and fining him $50,000. The appellate court ordered Vrdolyak to be resentenced by another judge.
Prosecutors on Friday asked for nearly 3 1/2 years for the “secret handshake deal,” calling Vrdolyak a “wealthy,” “privileged” man who conspired for a kickback because he was a powerful insider who could get away with it.
- Eugene - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 3:20 pm:
Another victory for Fast Eddie. 10 months isn’t that bad.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 3:22 pm:
OK, good to know Vrdolyak has to do prison time like most convicted felons. Shadur really dinged his own reputation with that joke of a sentence. This seems like a proper sentence, which if it had been imposed in the first place, would have been completed it by now.
- Reggie P - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 3:23 pm:
Garbage
- VoterUSA - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 3:28 pm:
20 years to late.
- PPHS - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 3:31 pm:
So, does he serve 80%? That is not fun by any stretch of the imagination. Yep, he was stupid.
- dupage dan - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 3:34 pm:
I can see the headlines now… “Fast Eddie Faces Fed Time”.
Sweet.
- Amalia - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 3:38 pm:
Prison is prison, no matter the length of sentence.
as for Shadur….what the what?!?
- Cool Hand Luke - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 3:40 pm:
Still not long enough time to serve. Unless I am misunderstanding it, it would seem that with the new sentencing for Vrdolyak that he no longer has to pay the original $50,000 fine that was imposed on him? For $50,000, there would be takers out there in this economy that would be willing to spend 10 months in a Club Fed college dormitory setting. That works out to around $5,000 a month to read books, watch television, and kill a little time. Not bad, Ed! We should have had you down in Springfield. You seem to understand the math when it comes to fiscal matters.
- dupage dan - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 3:48 pm:
CHL,
I read that the fine imposed is now 250K. A bit bigger than the original 50K fine, don’t you think?
- jim - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 3:59 pm:
That slimeball got a love tap. He deserved a lot more, although the court was constrained from considering his lifetime of real criminality.
- wordslinger - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 4:00 pm:
The old Dem/Gop chairman had a good run.
Ten months is nothing. If you have read any of the Outfit books out there, he’s been playing with house money for 40 years. His old partner in Council Wars is still whistling past the cemetery.
- Phineas J. Whoopee - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 5:15 pm:
This whole affair seems like it was rigged against Fast Eddie which is rather ironic.
- Boone Logan Square - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 5:27 pm:
Will he eventually deliver pizzas for the same joint that Betty worked at for a month?
- PPHS - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 5:30 pm:
And what about the additional 10 months of confinement? It that at a run down half way house with addicts?
- Irishpirate - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 5:37 pm:
So much talent and raw intellect.
So little moral compass.
Somewhere I imagine a loud chuckle coming from Harold Washington.
- ChicagoDem - Friday, Oct 15, 10 @ 8:07 pm:
Fast Eddie did it again…he beat the system! And yes, Harold is probably applauding Eddie for a well-played hand (his act of contriction befoe the judge and public)…Harold always admired smart pols and abhored the lightways who never understood the intent behing his political moves or those made by Eddie V and ‘his’ famous 29!
- Cool Hand Luke - Saturday, Oct 16, 10 @ 7:01 am:
Thanks for the additional info, DuPage Dan. I didn’t realize that they increased Vrdolyak’s fine.
- Edison Parker - Saturday, Oct 16, 10 @ 11:04 am:
PPHS: no. You only get the 15% federal good time if the sentence is over one year. That is why younwill sometimes see sentences of a year and a day. Eddie’s 10 month comes close but not enough.