Sanchez on Trial

By Kevin Robinson in News on Mar 19, 2009 4:45PM

As Al Sanchez's trial on federal corruption charges wound down Wednesday, his lawyers made closing arguments before the jury, painting Sanchez as a community activist, a dedicated public servant, and, most telling, a victim of Mayor Daley's plan to use the city payroll as a reward for political work.

Sanchez's attorney Thomas Breen acknowledged patronage in Chicago's Streets and Sanitation Department, admitting that many HDO workers wound up on the city payroll. But that didn't happen because Sanchez conspired to rig city hiring. "How dare these fats cats, how dare they not come in and say the truth," Breen said in an emotional closing argument, pointing to prosecution witnesses. "He was used," Breen said of Sanchez. "Take a real hard look at who they put their arms around," Breen said, referring to witnesses for the prosecution who testified under immunity, and who benefited from city contracts. "And they want to stop corruption?" Breen asked rhetorically. "These people are prostitutes."

"Nobody is saying that this fella did not work his backside off," Breen told jurors. "This guy did everything he could to serve the people of Chicago," Breen said, referring Sanchez's years of managing a department charged with clearing snow and removing trash. But prosecutors painted a different picture of Sanchez's tenure in the department. "Al Sanchez was the one with the juice," Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Ruder said. "That was juice he had built up over the years at HDO," she said. "The payday in this scheme was a city job, city jobs for political work through false representations," Ruder told the jury. "This case is about deep and abiding corruption -- corruption that grew and grew during the time Al Sanchez and his co-schemers participated in it," she said.

As jurors begin deliberations on Sanchez's fate, Carol Marin summed up the mood of the public right now, and perhaps the jury box judging Al Sanchez: "Watching the jury, I had to wonder if the dismal economy coupled with the outrage citizens feel about higher-ups who reap great rewards at the expense of workers further down the ladder, won't have some traction in this trial."

[Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6]