In the nearly two years he moved along the edges of power in Chicago, Michael Raymond was a man with gourmet tastes and a seemingly bottomless expense account.
He was a glad-hander, a name-dropper, a high-liver, an overweight epicure.
As he circulated among Chicago politicians and business people, he picked up the tab for expensive lunches. He dropped in for chats with city department heads. He whipped up tasty suppers for business associates in his luxury apartment. He flew present and former city officials to New York. And he handed out hundred-dollar bills to at least one alderman.
For months, he sought a face-to-face meeting with Mayor Harold Washington.
He had friends in high places, and he wanted more.
”He was a very friendly person who spent a lot of money. Everybody likes somebody like that,” recalled one city official who was acquainted with Raymond.
But Raymond`s friendship wasn`t free. He was looking for something in return–corrupt city officials.
”He was brought here by corrupt present and former political figures for corrupt purposes in violation of existing State of Illinois, City of Chicago and federal laws,” Edward Hegarty, the special agent in charge of the FBI`s Chicago office, said in a statement released earlier this week.
For whatever reason he originally came to Chicago, the convicted con man eventually began working for the FBI as an undercover informant seeking evidence of corruption within Chicago political circles, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
Ostensibly, Raymond was in Chicago to represent Systematic Recovery Service Inc., also known as SRS, a New York City collection firm that was seeking city contracts. But, for more than a year, Raymond wore a body microphone seven days a week and tape-recorded conversations with politicians and businessmen, according to sources.
When Raymond`s cooperation with the FBI began and how it developed remains a mystery, although it is clear that his arrest in Nashville in July, 1984, after a series of curious earlier trips there, was somehow important to the Chicago investigation.
What also is clear is that Raymond spent a great deal of time–and a great deal of money–cultivating those with power or access to power in Chicago political circles.
Raymond`s part in the federal investigation of Chicago politicians apparently was brought to a premature halt by officials a little more than a week ago because his involvement was about to be exposed by an article in a Florida magazine.
But the investigation itself is far from over, and it is likely to result in federal grand jury indictments of at least 12 local politicians and businessmen, sources say. So far, five black aldermen, all city council allies of Mayor Washington, have said they have been interviewed by the FBI or believe themselves to be targets of the investigation.
Since word of the inquiry leaked out on Christmas Eve, federal officials have been tight-lipped about the case. Raymond has dropped out of sight, although his telephone answering machine still is taking messages at his 15th floor apartment at Lake Point Tower on the city`s lakefront.
Nonetheless, from interviews with dozens of people who knew Raymond or knew of him, a picture is emerging bit by bit of the conman`s activities in Chicago.
”He had a propensity toward `if it wasn`t expensive, it wasn`t good,`
” says one city official acquainted with Raymond.
When Raymond first came to Chicago in 1984, he would stay at the Mayfair Regent Hotel, 181 E. Lake Shore Dr., and employees there remember him well.
”He was one of those people you just knew. You saw him all the time,”
said one bartender.
A waitress in Ciel Bleu, the hotel`s posh penthouse restaurant, recalled, ”He ordered off the menu, and he tipped well–real well.”
At some point, probably during the summer of 1985, Raymond moved to Apartment 1518 at Lake Point Tower, where he was also a big spender.
Workers in the Lake Point Tower Market, a small gourmet food store, said Raymond often would place large orders ”for steaks, roasts, loins, chickens” because he entertained a lot. At the Treasure Island supermarket at 666 N. Lake Shore Dr., Raymond often placed large orders for gourmet foood, said manager Harry Poulis. The last order, made in recent weeks, was for $170 to $180 in groceries, Poulis said.
In the Lake Point Tower Club, on the 70th floor of his apartment building, waiter Franco DiQuottro remembered Raymond well because he and his dining companions, usually black men, ”sat and talked a long time” after eating. Raymond would come into the club at least once a month and always took table 12 or a corner table, DiQuottro said.
Raymond exuded self-confidence in his business dealings on behalf of SRS, giving the impression that he was extremely well-connected at City Hall.
”He seemed to know everybody,” said one man who had business dealings with him.
This man recalled that Raymond drove a Cadillac, boasted of his skill as a chef and told of owning a home in Florida where he had kept two lion cubs until they grew too big and had to be given away.
In addition, Raymond, who according to arrest records is 6 feet tall and weighs 235 pounds, is described by those who knew him as ”a talker” who developed a reputation as a ladies man.
Among city officials, Raymond was ”interested in meeting anybody,” but he especially wanted to meet Washington. According to one source, Raymond said it was ”very important, very important” that he get to meet the mayor.
According to the same source, Raymond was continuing to seek an interview right up until Dec. 18, only days before his cover was blown and almost exactly two years after his scheme began.
The scheme apparently began shortly after Dec. 16, 1983, when Raymond was released from the federal prison in Texarkana, Tex., after serving only 16 months of an eight-year sentence in connection with a plot to sell $1.5 million in stolen securities and defraud a group of European investors.
Raymond, who was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., has had contacts with Chicago throughout his life. Within a month of leaving prison, he had been hired by SRS and, within two months, he was in Chicago representing SRS.
On March 13, 1984, Raymond, who was operating under the name of Michael Burnett, applied for an Illinois driver`s license. On the application form, he listed his home address as 3005 N. Osceola Ave.
The Osceola Avenue address turns out to be the Northwest Side home of Michael Lambesis, a former Chicago police sergeant and now the head of the internal security unit of the office of Morgan Finley, the Cook County Circuit Court Clerk.
Asked about this at his home, Lambesis said, ”No comment. I know nothing.”
However, sources say Lambesis squired Raymond around, introducing him to influential people in the city. According to one source, Raymond and Lambesis talked of knowing each other for more than 30 years.
When Raymond arrived in Chicago, one of the first people he sought to meet was Clarence McClain, the close friend and former aide to Washington, according to sources. At some point, Raymond gave McClain money, according to a statement Raymond made to a reporter last summer before his undercover role became known.
McClain denies even knowing Raymond. But one black businessman said McClain aggressively recruited him to meet with Raymond about acting as a minority partner with SRS.
According to a court statement by an FBI agent, the agency had Raymond under surveillance in the spring of 1984. The reason for the surveillance wasn`t disclosed.
Federal sources say the FBI learned as a result of the surveillance that Raymond was making frequent trips to Nashville, staying at the larger hotels. On at least two occasions, the FBI tipped off local police that Raymond and another man, Alan Russell Varley II, were flying from Chicago to Nashville to burglarize the homes of wealthy businessmen.
On July 11, 1984, Nashville police, acting on an FBI tip, arrested the two men in a rented van. They were armed with a loaded machine gun and silencer, two clips of ammunition and a .25-caliber automatic pistol.
The FBI information about Raymond`s plans and activities in Nashville was so detailed, even down to the names of his prospective victims, that it appears likely the FBI had similar information about the conman`s plans and activities in Chicago. However, officials have not confirmed that supposition either on or off the record.
Varley, the man who was arrested with Raymond, was a former ski resort employee in Colorado and All-American swimmer who originally got into trouble with the law on Feb. 9, 1981, when he was one of five men arrested for conspiracy to import cocaine, according to court records and relatives.
Varley, who received a 12-year sentence, had been at the Texarkana prison for more than a year when Raymond was moved there while serving his conviction on the European securities fraud.
Only three months after Raymond was released from Texarkana, Varley`s sentence was suddenly reduced by an Oklahoma City federal judge to five years probation, and Varley was released.
Although arrested by local police in Nashville, the two men were placed in federal custody and charged with federal weapons violations.
William A. Aronwald, a New York City attorney with a strong background as a federal prosecutor, flew in to Nashville to represent the two men.
At first, the two men pleaded not guilty to the charges. But then, on Oct. 22, 1984, they changed their pleas to guilty.
Court records indicate that, for the next 13 months, Varley was held in Tennessee jails until, on May 15, 1985, his parole was revoked and he was returned to prison. On the weapons charge, he was sentenced to 24 months with 13 months considered already served.
Raymond`s sentencing, meanwhile, was postponed until Feb. 28, 1986.
It is unclear how long Raymond was out of circulation because of the Nashville arrest. However, he was reportedly back on the job with SRS sometime in the fall of 1984.
Despite Raymond`s activities, Datacom was given a non-bid contract for Chicago`s parking fine collections in February, 1985.
The setback, however, didn`t stop Raymond`s activities. He continued meeting with city power brokers, and, during the summer, the work seemed to bear fruit when SRS was one of five firms to be given a contract to seek to recover overdue water bill payments.
Raymond even sought meetings with Tribune reporters and held two–one in the Lake Point Tower apartment and another over lunch at the Chez Paul restaurant.
Raymond told the reporters that, in an unusual move, 10 black aldermen, normally allies of Washington, were drafting a city council resolution calling for an investigation of Datacom`s work for Chicago.
The resolution was introduced on Oct. 9 by Aldermen Perry Hutchinson
(9th) and Marian Humes (8th).
Two months later, Hutchinson was one of four aldermen who said they had been interviewed by the FBI. The others were Clifford Kelley (20th), Wallace Davis Jr. (27th) and William Beavers (7th). Humes said she believes she is also a target of the investigation.
Apparently, Raymond could have gone on indefinitely in his undercover role, but his part in the operation ended in late December because a story detailing his past, particularly his connection with the disappearance of three Florida people in the 1970s, and his present undercover activities was about to be published by Miami/South Florida magazine.
Raymond, who had been seeking a meeting with Washington as late as Dec. 18, dropped out of sight.
Raymond`s attorney Aronwald says he has been in contact with Raymond since then.
”He is fully aware of what has been written and has no desire to talk to anyone,” Aronwald said.
