Inside story: Fast Eddie Vrdolyak and Judge Shadur

NEWS ITEM: Ed Vrdolyak walks from corruption case.

NEWS ITEM: Federal judge says Fast Eddie was no insider.

Once upon a time, legend has it there was a "Department of Insiders" at Chicago City Hall.

The Commissioner of Insiders was Edward Vrdolyak and everybody knew it.

He was actually known in the papers and on TV by a six-word name: "Powerful 10th Ward Alderman Edward Vrdolyak" although to dispense of such formalities, he was simply and fondly called "Fast Eddie."

The moniker "Fast" was not due to Mr. Vrdolyak being particularly fleet of feet or because he was speedy behind the wheel. Indeed, he usually enjoyed being driven between his southeast side home, his law office and city hall.

Vrdolyak was deftly in charge of the fast track at city hall, aka the inside track; hence the "Department of Insiders."

This era of Chicago history is known as "The Age Between the Daley's," that is, the years between mayor's Richard J. and Richard M., which were basically the late 70s and 80s.

It was during that period that Vrdolyak's reputation as Commissioner of Insiders grew so wide and far that even schoolchildren knew how to pronounce his name and some could even spell it without cheating.

Also about that time, a wise Chicago lawyer named Milton Shadur became a federal judge in Chicago. Mr. Shadur had attended University of Chicago in the 1940s. He then spent nearly three decades with a respected law firm in Chicago as a savvy handler of real estate and corporate matters.

Shadur took the federal bench in 1980, after being recommended for the 7th Circuit judgeship by Sen. Adlai Stevenson (D-IL) and formally nominated by Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

At the time, Mr. Vrdolyak was the head of the Cook County Democratic Party, which had helped both Stevenson and Carter into office. While Vrdolyak was responsible for the slating and appointment of all local judges, he had no official role in the seating of federal jurists.

Shadur had only been a judge for a few years when Mr. Vrdolyak's name first surfaced in his courtroom. It was during the public corruption trial of State Rep. Larry Bullock (D-Chicago), a top Vrdolyak ally in 1986.

Bullock was charged with diverting state funds to make himself rich and enlisting Vrdolyak's help in the scheme. Even though Vrdolyak wasn't charged or even called as a witness in the case, his name and political fingerprints were all over the case.

Bullock's lawyer even contended that Vrdolyak was the government's real target and that when they couldn't convince Bullock to flip on Vrdolyak, they indicted him.

After the jury convicted Bullock, Judge Shadur sentenced the state representative to six years in prison, calling him "a grasping politician, using his office to enrich himself, to feather his own nest."

Fast forward 22 years, to the sentencing of Fast Eddie. Vrdolyak had pleaded guilty in a scheme to pocket a bogus finder's fee in a Mag Mile real estate deal.

"According to U.S. District Court Judge Milton I. Shadur, Former Chicago Alderman and judicial kingmaker Eddie Vrdolyak is not an insider," stated last week's Daily Herald story by Rob Olmstead.

Judge Shadur determined that Vrdolyak was not an insider when he agreed to act as a "finder" for the crooked land deal in which he knew the fix was in.

Judge Shadur found that Vrdolyak was not an insider despite splitting that finder's fee with a crooked school board member who would steer the sale to Vrdolyak's client.

That was not a "kickback," Shadur said.

The government asked that Vrdolyak be sentenced to at least 41 months in prison and had planned to paint his corruption as a rolling landscape.

But the judge didn't want to see a painting of Fast Eddie's past. Maybe he'd seen enough 22 years ago.

"We do not sentence stick figures," Shadur said. "We do not sentence them because of what people might think about them."

So, having determined that Vrdolyak was not an insider in any wrongdoing, Shadur called him "a good man" and set him free.

But before Fast Eddie left, he had a few quick words for the judge.

"I hope never to be in a courtroom again in any way, shape or form after this one," Vrdolyak said. "Even though you run a tight ship."

A tight ship.

Now that is something Fast Eddie knows about.

Because the controls are all on the inside.

• Chuck Goudie, whose column appears each Monday, is the chief investigative reporter at ABC 7 News in Chicago. The views in this column are his own and not those of WLS-TV. He can be reached by email at chuckgoudie@gmail.com