A manager who once oversaw the city’s Hired Truck Program faced attempted extortion charges on Monday as City Hall received a sweeping grand jury subpoena demanding records surrounding the controversial and problem-plagued program.
Meanwhile, city officials suspended seven trucking companies from the program for unspecified rules violations, and FBI officials said they were forming a second public corruption squad in the Chicago office because of the volume of corruption cases here.
Angelo Torres, 36, who headed the Hired Truck Program until being transferred to another post in December, appeared in U.S. District Court after being arrested Sunday by FBI agents.
A cooperating trucking contractor, who was not identified, gave Torres about $3,800 in a series of separate payments that began in 2001, according to U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald. In return, Torres agreed to steer at least $50,000 in city business to the owner, prosecutors charged.
“Any time you have people taking money or shaking people down for money and putting it in their pocket, you corrupt the system,” Fitzgerald said.
The cooperating contractor “had to pay to play in terms of winning city business. We encourage any other victims of such allegedly extortionate activity to come forward with their information,” said Fitzgerald, who disclosed that the investigation is continuing.
Torres was ordered released to his wife on a $25,000 recognizance bond. He was represented in court by Thomas Needham, a former aide to Mayor Richard Daley who later served as general counsel in the Chicago Police Department and chief of staff to then Police Supt. Terry Hillard.
Needham left the department several years ago to enter private practice.
Torres was fired from his current post in the city’s Transportation Department, “effective immediately,” said city Corporation Counsel Mara Georges.
City workers accused of crimes typically are put on paid administrative leave until charges of wrongdoing are investigated, but “We believe these allegations are so serious, it would be doing the taxpayers a disservice to do anything less,” Georges said.
Under the nearly $40 million-a-year Hired Truck Program, about 165 trucking companies are paid to provide trucks and drivers to haul material to and from city construction sites.
The subpoena seeks records “relating in any way” to the program. It also demands all records relating to applications and certifications for Hired Truck participants who have received special city designation, and thus special treatment, as minority- and women-owned.
City officials said last week that a 2003 city audit found the program was seriously flawed. Some companies have been paid for providing trucks that were not used, and the program has been vulnerable to corruption, they acknowledged.
The federal investigation presented a new headache for Daley, who has been embarrassed by problems with Hired Truck as well as the city’s minority contracting effort in the past.
“Any time anyone on the city payroll is accused of any wrongdoing it shakes the public’s trust,” Daley said in a statement.
“My commitment has always been to government that has been open and honest,” added the mayor, who reportedly was out of the city on vacation. “When that doesn’t happen, it angers me because taxpayers deserve integrity. … I want to assure the public that we take these kinds of allegations seriously and will deal with them severely whenever and wherever they occur.”
Late Monday, the city’s Budget Department announced that the seven companies were suspended from Hired Truck indefinitely for “specific violations of … program rules.” A department spokeswoman declined to elaborate.
One of the firms, Four Queens, reportedly is owned by Torres’ father-in-law, Arnold Anzaldua.
The company is named after Anzaldua’s four daughters, including Torres’ wife, Josephine. Court records indicate problems between the couple.
On June 3, 2002, Josephine Torres took out an order of protection against her husband, alleging he called her at work and threatened to hurt her and kill her, according to court documents.
In the same filing, she also charged that he had put a gun to her head and threatened her in October 2001. The order of protection was terminated Aug. 20, 2002.
Josephine Torres filed for divorce on July 16, 2002, but the filing was dismissed March 28, 2003.
Angelo Torres was hired in July of 1996 to work on a city Denver booting crew, officials said. By late 1998 he had been transferred to the Budget Department, where he ultimately was assigned to head Hired Truck. He served in that job until last December when “it was determined he was not doing his job effectively,” Georges said.
He then was transferred to the city’s Transportation Department, where he worked as an inspector, she said.
Besides Four Queens, the companies suspended from the program were Blaz Cartage, Gavin Construction, JMS Trucking Co., Miffy Co. Inc., Rotondo Trucking Co. and Schadt’s Inc.
The additional FBI public corruption unit was necessary because of the volume of work, including the Hired Truck case, officials said.
“We’ve got the (former) governor being indicted, we have Fawell, we have the south suburban police officers ripping off drug dealers, minority contracts, the Segal case, the Duffs– there’s a lot of going on,” said Ross Rice, an FBI spokesman.
The cases range from one involving former Gov. George Ryan to another centering on Windy City Maintenance, a firm allegedly controlled by male members of the Duff family. A Tribune investigation found that the firm won millions of dollars in city contracts as a female-owned firm under a city contract set-aside program designed to benefit women and minorities.
The new FBI unit, staffed by agents from other sections of the agency’s Chicago office, will start work Feb. 9, officials said.
New Orleans has three public corruption squads, while New York and Miami have two each.
