In the nearly two years that 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 seeking city contracts. But for more than a year, Raymond wore a microphone seven days a week and tape-recorded conversations with politicians and businessmen, according to sources familiar with his activities.
Exactly when Raymond`s cooperation with the FBI began and how it developed remains a mystery, though it is clear that his arrest in Nashville in July, 1984, after a series of curious trips there, was somehow important to the Chicago investigation.
What also is clear is that Raymond apparently 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 could result in federal grand jury indictments of at least 12 local politicians and businessmen, sources close to the case say. So far, five black aldermen, all allied with Washington, have said they have been interviewed by the FBI or believe themselves to be targets of the investigation.
Since the inquiry became public on Christmas Eve, federal officials have been tight-lipped about the case. Raymond himself has dropped out of sight, though 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 con man`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,” one bartender said.
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.
That apartment is across the hall from one that belongs to Sandra McNeil, the president of Special Marketing Systems Inc., which has offices on the 46th floor of the building.
Bevita Wise, McNeil`s assistant, who often visits McNeil`s apartment, says she noticed some strange things about Apartment 1518 earlier in the year. ”The door had all sorts of dirt all over it, like mechanics grease, like someone was doing some sort of construction or building inside, but the door was never opened,” she says.
”Usually, around here, when someone`s moving in or out and they`re changing the carpets or painting, the crews leave the doors open. But I`ve never seen the door open to that apartment.”
As at the Mayfair Regent, Raymond was a big spender while living in Lake Point Tower.
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 food, 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 the 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, one former associate said. This source quoted Raymond as saying 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 the operation ended and two years after his scheme, in whatever its original form, began.
Raymond`s efforts to win Chicago contracts apparently began shortly after Dec. 16, 1983, when he 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.
Within a month after leaving prison, Raymond had been hired by SRS, and within two months, he was in Chicago representing the company, a source familiar with the operation said.
Over the years, Raymond, who was born in Brooklyn, had developed business and social contacts in Chicago.
Shortly after arriving in Chicago, on March 13, 1984, Raymond, operating under the alias 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 director of the internal security unit of the office of Morgan Finley, clerk of Cook County Circuit Court.
Asked about this by a reporter, Lambesis said, ”No comment. I know nothing.”
Sources close to the operation 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, the sources said. 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 knowing Raymond.
While Raymond was beginning to make contacts in Chicago, the FBI, for some unexplained reason, had him under surveillance, according to a court statement by an FBI agent.
As an apparent result of this surveillance, the FBI learned that Raymond was making frequent trips to Nashville and staying at the larger hotels there, sources familiar with the case said.
At least twice, the FBI tipped off local police that Raymond and another man, Alan Russell Varley II, were planning to fly from Chicago to Nashville to burglarize the homes of wealthy businessmen, sources said.
One prospective victim, J.C. Bradford, the director of a large stock brokerage house, says he was warned that the two men were planning to burglarize his mother`s home in the affluent Nashville suburb of Belle Meade. Later, Nashville police were tipped by the FBI that Raymond and Varley were coming down to break into the home of Walter Robinson, the former president of the National Life and Accident Insurance Co., sources said.
On July 11, 1984, the two men were arrested in a rented van near Robinson`s home, 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 is possible the FBI had similar information about the con man`s plans and activities in Chicago. But officials have not confirmed that.
Varley, who was arrested with Raymond, was a former ski-resort employee in Colorado and All-America swimmer who originally got into trouble with the law on Feb. 9, 1981, when he was one of five men arrested on charges of 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 sentence for his conviction in the European securities fraud case.
The two were together at the prison for 11 months.
Only three months after Raymond was released from Texarkana, Varley`s sentence unexpectedly was reduced by an Oklahoma City federal judge to five years probation, and Varley was released. Varley`s sentence reduction came on March 14, the day after Raymond applied for a driver`s license in Illinois.
The reason for Varley`s sentence reduction is unclear, just as the reason SRS hired Raymond out of prison is unclear.
What can be determined about Varley`s life indicates no past association with Chicago before his release from prison.
But based on the FBI surveillance, Varley apparently went to Chicago after his release and hooked up in some way with Raymond, eventually being arrested with him in Nashville.
Although arrested by local police in Nashville, the two men were placed in federal custody and charged with federal weapons charges.
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. Aronwald, the former director of the Organized Crime Strike Force in New York and former chief of the criminal division in the office of the U.S. attorney there, says he first met Raymond in the early 1970s when Raymond was working as a federal informant.
At first, Varley and Raymond pleaded innocent to the charges. But 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 May 15, 1985, when his parole was officially 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. He was reportedly back on the job with SRS sometime in the fall of 1984.
Ira Edelson, who was acting revenue director for the city at the time and now is Washington`s top financial adviser, says that in the fall Raymond was present for a meeting he had in New York City with Bernard Sandow, the president of SRS.
SRS was going after a contract to collect unpaid parking ticket revenue, and, according to Edelson, its sales technique consisted mainly of criticizing the firm that eventually got the contract, Datacom Systems Corp., a New York- based subsidiary of Lockheed Corp.
In fact, SRS gave Edelson a list of officials in various cities who, he was promised, would tell him that Datacom was doing a bad job. Edelson says that when he contacted officials in New York, Boston, Detroit and
Philadelphia, he was told that Datacom was actually doing its work well.
Edelson says Raymond did little talking at the meeting. ”Sandow knew what the hell he was talking about. The other guy was fluff,” Edelson says.
Despite Raymond`s activities, Datacom was given a non-bid contract for Chicago`s parking fine collections in February, 1985.
But Raymond continued meeting with city politicians, and during the summer, the work seemed to bear fruit when SRS was one of five firms to receive a contract to collect overdue water bill payments.
But even with this contract in hand, Raymond sought to win the more lucrative parking ticket contract.
In an effort to spread the criticism about Datacom, Raymond sought meetings with Tribune reporters and two were held–one in the Lake Point Tower apartment and another over lunch at the Chez Paul restaurant.
Raymond and Sandow, the SRS president, sought to convince the reporters that Datacom was doing a poor job in Chicago and elsewhere in the country.
Raymond also told the reporters that, in an unusual move, 10 aldermen who normally were 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 about their dealings with Raymond. 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.
During the fall, Raymond met often with top city officials and aldermen.
Raymond`s attorney Aronwald says he has been in contact with Raymond, though he would not say where he is.
