The controversial light sentence handed down earlier this year to former alderman Edward "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak is now coming under scrutiny from an appeals panel. The Tribune reports that a three-member panel from the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is digging into concerns over the sentence. Vdrolyak, who pleaded guilty to playing a role in a real estate kickback scheme involving property being sold on behalf of Rosalind Franklin University, received a sentence of five years probation and a $50,000 fine from U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur, who defended the sentence by claiming the school suffered no financial loss as a result of the scheme while the school claimed they lost as much as $6 million on the sale. more ›

It's good to be Edward "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak. Facing a potential sentence of between three and four years in prison for his role in a kickback scheme, Fast Eddie walked out of the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse yesterday a free man, sentenced to five years probation and fined $50,000, and declaring for reporters, "God is great." In spite of calls from prosecutors to come down heavy on Vrdolyak, U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur called the prosecution's case against him "serious overkill" when announcing the sentence. Vrdolyak pleaded guilty last fall to his role in the kickback scheme, but had refused to cooperate with the feds in any of their additional investigations. Per the Trib: more ›

In court records unsealed recently, it seems that Edward "Fast Eddie" Vrdolyak was ultimately done in by "buddy" Stuart Levine, who taped conversations between he and Vrdolyak in 2006. And if that name sounds familiar, yes, it's the same Stuart Levine whose testimony was the crux of the case against one Mr. Tony Rezko. Vrdolyak just pled guilty a few weeks ago to the real estate kickback scheme of Rosalind Franklin University's sale of a Gold Coast building. In the taped conversations, Levine is described as, "pressing his old pal for his share of a bogus finder's fee." The Trib recounts this more succinctly than we ever could.

Levine, a board member at the school, tapped his friend Vrdolyak to find a buyer, Smithfield Properties Development. more ›