Al Sanchez trial: Chicago worker says job came before application
Man says he worked for Daley group and then got a job without applying
By Todd Lighty | Tribune reporter
March 13, 2009

John Barrera says his work for Al Sanchez's Hispanic Democratic Organization led to a toll collector job. Sanchez's lawyer suggested Barrera's other political ties were at work. (Tribune photo by Abel Uribe / March 12, 2009)



John Barrera wanted to work for the city, so he joined the Hispanic Democratic Organization, a feared political street army that wielded power over jobs inside Mayor Richard Daley's administration.

In his first political campaign for the group, he helped Ald. John Pope (10th) get elected ward committeeman in 2000.

Later that summer, Al Sanchez, an HDO leader and Daley's commissioner in the Streets and Sanitation Department, told Barrera the good news: He was getting a city job as a toll collector on the Chicago Skyway.

It was a position he hadn't even applied for yet.




Trial set to begin for former aide to Richard Daley Barrera said he filled out an application for toll collector outside an East Side neighborhood bar about two weeks after meeting with Sanchez. He gave the application to Sanchez's driver.

Barrera told his story Thursday as a government witness against Sanchez, his former boss on trial on charges he rigged the city's hiring system to reward the mayor's political supporters with jobs and promotions.

Barrera, who is now a Chicago firefighter, testified that he worked on 15 to 20 campaigns for HDO-backed candidates.

One of Sanchez's lawyers, Patrick Blegen, got Barrera to reveal to the federal jury that he had political connections of his own. Blegen suggested that was how he got his city job.

Barrera acknowledged that his father was a former ward committeeman and that he started working on political campaigns as a child.

On Thursday, Daley again would not answer questions about Sanchez's trial.

When reporters pressed the mayor to explain how one city employee got her job, Daley grew angry and shut down the line of questioning.

"I'm not answering questions about that," he said.

Tribune reporter Stacy St. Clair also contributed.

tlighty@tribune.com

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