Organized Crime won’t miss Peter Fitzgerald

As Carol Marin points out, Patrick Fitzgerald, Peter’s handpicked US Attorney, has targeted a series of mob related deaths.


One of the little-known facts about Sen. Fitzgerald is that he is a walking, talking encyclopedia on the Chicago Outfit. He has not only read, but can quote from Ovid Demaris’ 1969 book "Captive City" even though it has been out of print for years, "Captive City" is a bible of sorts for FBI agents and federal prosecutors who work the mob squads. It is a chronicle of how organized crime insinuated itself into every Chicago institution from government to the courts to the labor unions since Al Capone.

The blind eye that has too often existed in Chicago hurts union members the worst and this is no exception:


Joey Lombardo Jr. also has the feds’ attention. As an official of the Laborers Union, he is charged in a civil federal racketeering case with allowing organized crime’s influence into his union, a charge he denies. The union, as the result of a consent decree, is working with federal monitors to throw Lombardo Jr. out. As a civil matter, it has no formal connection to the criminal investigation of his father and yet, in a unique agreement, federal grand jury material can be shared between the U.S. attorney’s office and union monitors.

Fitzgerald had all sorts of annoying traits, but one annoying trait should be celebrated: Absolute unswerving stubborness on corruption.

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