Taxable Talk

There’s one thing about Illinois politics: Both Democrats and Republicans tend toward corruption. After all, which of the past few governors haven’t gone to prison?

The DOJ news release on the indictment of Daniel Soso makes for interesting reading. Sure, he’s accused of not paying approximately $779,615.86 in income tax (I’m not sure how approximate that is when there are pennies in the press release, but whatever). But it’s the preceding paragraph that makes for intrigue:

The indictment alleges that in 1996, the Illinois Attorney General entered into a written contract with several law firms who represented the State of Illinois in its lawsuit against certain tobacco companies to recover, among other things, money damages incurred by the State of Illinois as a result of the sale of tobacco products to residents of the State of Illinois. In addition, the contract provided that the law firms representing the State of Illinois, including Law Firm B, would share a “contingent fee” equal to ten percent of the total monetary recovery realized by the State of Illinois in its planned lawsuit. The indictment further alleges that Soso, Individual A (an individual formerly licensed to practice in Illinois) and Individual B (a partner of Law Firm B) entered into agreements to pay Soso and Individual A a portion of the attorney fees awarded in the tobacco lawsuit and concealed these agreements from the State of Illinois, the Illinois Attorney General and others.

The Chicago Sun-Times let’s us know who they think Individual A is.

[Edward] Vrdolyak isn’t identified by name in the Soso indictment and hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing in the case. But the indictment cites an unnamed “Individual A.” Vrdolyak is Individual A, two sources with knowledge of the case told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Mr. Vrdolyak is a former Chicago Alderman who was convicted back in 2008 in a kickback scheme and received ten months at ClubFed.

Chicago is a beautiful city–one of my favorite places in the world–but you can have both its weather and its politics.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 31st, 2015 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Illinois, Tax Evasion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.