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Former Aide to Chicago Alderman Howard Brookins Gets Prison Sentence for Bribery

Curtis Thompson, then Brookins' chief of staff, was arrested in February 2014 after prosecutors alleged he had accepted the bribe at the alderman's holiday party two months earlier from an FBI mole posing as a real estate developer in need of a liquor license for a new convenience store.

By Jason Meisner

As a teenager growing up on Chicago's South Side, Curtis Thompson Jr. used to come downtown at night to help his father, a city janitor, literally clean up City Hall.

On Wednesday, he became the latest in a long line of dirty city officials to be sentenced to prison.

"You messed up and you know it," U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan said in sentencing a contrite Thompson to 15 months behind bars for accepting a $7,500 cash bribe to fix a liquor license in Ald. Howard Brookins' 21st Ward.

"City officials over the years, time and time again, have demonstrated their greed," the judge said. "...Such corruption cannot be tolerated, no matter what the excuse is."

Thompson, 63, then Brookins' chief of staff, was arrested in February 2014 after prosecutors alleged he had accepted the bribe at the alderman's holiday party two months earlier from an FBI mole posing as a real estate developer in need of a liquor license for a new convenience store. Thompson had pleaded guilty to one count of bribery and faced up to 18 months in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.

Before the sentence was handed down, Thompson stood at the lectern and apologized for embarrassing his community and family, particularly his college-age son who was in the courtroom. Thompson said it had brought a tear to his eye when he returned to City Hall as a chief of staff decades after helping his father with his janitorial duties.

"Now here we are today," he said.

At the center of the case was one of a Chicago alderman's most coveted powers -- influence over who obtains a city license to sell alcohol in the ward. The FBI informant made it clear he was willing to pay for the privilege and recorded several meetings with the alderman and Thompson using a hidden video camera.

Brookins was not charged with any wrongdoing, but in court papers, prosecutors alleged that in one of the meetings, he was passed a note from the informant that said "12K to you" in return for a letter of support for the liquor license. Brookins was captured on undercover video turning his head "slightly sideways" as he looked at the paper, then passing it to an aide who handed it to Thompson, prosecutors have said.

Thompson ended up preparing two letters of support for the developer on the alderman's letterhead -- after obtaining Brookins' support to do so, according to Thompson's plea agreement.

Thompson's lawyer, William Murphy, had sought probation, in part citing Thompson's agreement to wear a wire against his boss in an attempt by federal investigators to ensnare Brookins in the scheme. Murphy said federal investigators botched the undercover effort by hurrying it along, contrary to Thompson's wishes.

"When asked to propose an exchange while wearing the recording device, Mr. Thompson suggested that they wait a few days until...these matters were ordinarily discussed and proposed," Murphy said in a court filing Tuesday. "The government along with special agents refused to wait, and ultimately blew the investigation due to their impatience."

The information appears to corroborate the account Brookins gave to the Tribune after Thompson's arrest last year. Brookins told the newspaper that while they were in a car together, his chief of staff showed him an envelope and said it contained the cash from the developer weeks after their discussions.

Brookins said he told Thompson they couldn't take the money, ordered him to return the cashand reported the incident to the city Board of Ethics shortly before learning Thompson had been charged.

"I don't run an office like that," Brookins said at the time. "We welcome business, and nobody -- nobody -- has to pay us to open a business in the 21st Ward."

Prosecutors said Thompson's attempt at cooperation was "not fruitful" and did not offer any break in his recommended sentence.

The FBI informant, Mhde Askar, worked with federal authorities for six years on a number of cases after he was arrested in 2008 in a massive mortgage fraud scheme. He was sentenced to probation in May 2014 after prosecutors cited his undercover work.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Church told the judge Wednesday it was "outrageous" that Thompson didn't throw Askar out of his office the moment the bribe was offered. Instead, Thompson had a series of meetings with the informant and groomed him as a "potential source for cash," she said.

"He was someone (Thompson) could go back to, to hit up for cash in support of the alderman," Church said, calling Thompson "today's poster child for corruption."

(c)2015 the Chicago Tribune

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