City denies feds seized data
September 2, 2006

BY SHAMUS TOOMEY Staff Reporter















Mayor Daley's spokeswoman and a top City Hall lawyer on Friday denied a Chicago Sun-Times report that federal agents last week picked up personnel records of 29 current Streets and Sanitation employees with ties to the Daley-created Hispanic Democratic Organization.

Sun-Times Managing Editor Don Hayner said the newspaper stands by the story, which featured a front-page headline.

The Sun-Times on Friday, citing City Hall sources, reported the personnel records were taken within minutes of the city being notified.

Mayoral press secretary Jacquelyn Heard and Ted Chung, the city's first assistant corporation counsel, insisted, however, that federal investigators did not pick up documents last week -- and they haven't taken documents from City Hall in months.

'High degree of cooperation'



"We're telling you that did not happen," Heard said Friday.







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Feds seize data on 29 tied to HDO
Federal agents have taken the personnel records of 29 current Streets and Sanitation employees -- ranging from laborers to top managers -- who owe their jobs and promotions to the Daley-created Hispanic Democratic Organization, City Hall sources said.
























Chung said there has been "a high degree of cooperation" between federal investigators and City Hall, and he and the Law Department would have known if documents were taken by the feds last week.

"We stand by our story," Hayner said Friday.

Heard expressed frustration with the newspaper's stance in the face of denials from her and the Law Department. She asked what more the city could do to prove the document retrieval didn't happen.

"Nobody's documents have been taken," Heard reiterated.

Citing sources, the Sun-Times reported that virtually all of the personnel records taken involved employees with ties to former Streets and Sanitation Commissioner Al Sanchez, a longtime HDO lieutenant and 10th Ward coordinator.

City hiring corruption trial



Federal prosecutors suggested at a city hiring corruption trial that Sanchez and HDO chief Victor Reyes were part of a scheme to reward political volunteers with city jobs or promotions. Four men, including the mayor's patronage chief, Robert Sorich, were convicted in the trial. Sanchez and Reyes have not been charged, but their names came up repeatedly at trial.

stoomey@suntimes.com




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