Two former Illinois secretary of state employees and a driving school owner will serve a year or less in prison for their involvement in a scheme to provide commercial driver’s licenses in return for cash payoffs.
U.S. District Court Judge Suzanne B. Conlon sentenced Soon Cho, 40, a former manager of the Elk Grove licensing facility, and Wojciech “Wally” Grabinski, 52, the former owner of Enigma Driving School, to 8 months in prison and 2 years of supervised release. They must each pay a $3,000 fine.
Ronald Martin, 56, a nearly 20-year veteran of the secretary of state’s office, received a 12-month sentence and 2 years of supervised release. The judge waived a fine because of Martin’s financial condition.
Martin received a longer sentence because he is accused of accepting between $70,000 and $120,000 in payoffs, compared with Cho, who accepted between $10,000 and $20,000, prosecutors said.
In an emotional plea, Martin apologized for his actions.
“I’m very sorry,” he said. “I’m ashamed for what I did and I take responsibility.”
The three men, who pleaded guilty in January, are part of a licenses-for-bribes scandal that has ripped through the state agency. Since the Operation Safe Road investigation began in 1998, 30 people have been charged, and 25 have pleaded guilty.
Besides the bribery scheme, the investigation has focused on the vigor with which secretary of state officials pursued evidence of wrongdoing. The Tribune reported Sunday that five years before Grabinski pleaded guilty, secretary of state officials knew he was keeping phony records and helping students cheat on tests.
Cho of Morton Grove and Martin, a former public service representative from Arlington Heights, have admitted taking money from Grabinski to ensure his students, many of whom did not speak English, would pass written and road tests so they could get a commercial driver’s license at the Elk Grove facility.
From at least 1994 until April 1996, Grabinski of Chicago gave Martin up to $500 a week to pass applicants he sponsored, according to court records.
Martin pocketed some of the cash and gave an undisclosed amount to Cho to buy political fundraising tickets, authorities said. Some of the money that Grabinski paid Cho was used to buy fundraising tickets for Gov. George Ryan, authorities said.
Ryan, who has not been identified as a target of the probe, has said he never pressured employees to raise campaign funds when he headed the state agency.
