But rather a Chicago suburb, Cicero (home of that staunch Republican, Al Capone). Cicero town officials have uniformly been Republicans for decades.
Betty Loren-Maltese used to be the Town President of Cicero. She inherited the job from her husband, Frank Maltese, who had to resign as Town President after he was convicted of mob-related gambling charges. (He died of cancer before he could start serving his sentence.) Anyway, Loren-Maltese got into trouble because a newspaper reporter discovered that she had bought a house in Las Vegas for $1 million, yet her salary was $85K. So where did the money come from?
The U.S. Attorney started looking into Cicero, and discovered that Loren-Maltese, the Town Treasurer, the Town Attorney, the Police Chief and his predecessor, and a couple of mafiosi had robbed the town of $12 million. During the course of the investigation, the entire Cicero police force was fired. Two thirds of the patrolmen and half of the detectives did manage to be re-hired, but for the better part of a year, the town was patrolled by the Illinois State Police, at a horrendous per-diem paid to the state. Ms. Loren-Maltese has been released from prison, and is now working at a hostess at a pizzaria.
The replacement as Cicero Town Attorney, Edward "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak, a former Chicago Alderman, former Democrat (now Republican), was convicted of fraud and was in the same cell block in the federal prison at Terre Haute as former governor George Ryan. (Ryan's successor as governor, Rod Blagojevich, is in a different federal prison -- I thought it would be appropriate if the two were cellmates, but it didn't happen. BTW, Ryan is a Republican, Blago is a Democrat). Vrdolyak's successor, Michael Del Galdo, is was found to have overbilled the town to the tune of $2 million.
Cicero, incidentally, was named for the Roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero, noted as a fighter against government corruption.
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