State's Attorney Race Heats Up

By Kevin Robinson in News on Apr 2, 2008 5:50PM

Cook County Commissioner and GOP candidate for state's attorney Tony Peraica took a swipe at his opponent, Democrat Anita Alvarez yesterday. "It reinforces to the citizens of Cook County that what we have is corruption on steroids that is prevalent at all levels of government," Peraica said, referring to a photograph of her on the front page of last week's El Dia, a Spanish language newspaper. That photograph, taken during a fundraiser at a Southwest Side restaurant, shows her posing with Jorge Montes de Oca, Jr, son of the paper's owner and, until recently a wanted man.

That night, de Oca had a warrant for his arrest on charges that he wrote bad checks to an auto dealership. He has since been arrested, and is out on bond. Peraica also says that several leaders of the Hispanic Democratic Organization were at her fundraiser that night. "The HDO has been at the epicenter of all the corruption that has gone on at the city of Chicago," Peraica told CBS2. "To insinuate that any public official of Hispanic heritage has connections to the HDO is racist... These allegations are completely absurd and if they were not coming from Commissioner Tony Peraica, our campaign would consider this an April Fool's Day joke," Alvarez said in a statement issued to the press.