All aboard: Relatives of embattled state Sen. Martin Sandoval hitch a ride on CTA payroll

The CTA hired two close relatives of state Sen. Martin Sandoval while he was chairman of the Illinois Senate's Transportation Committee that holds huge sway over transit funding and legislation, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

Sandoval has since stepped down from heading that committee after federal agents raided his Chicago home and government offices on Sept. 24 as part of an ongoing political corruption investigation.

While Sandoval ran that committee in June 2018, the CTA brought on board Sandoval's daughter, Jennifer, as a $13-an-hour college intern, and his future daughter-in-law, Maryte Castillo Zavala, as a full-time employee, now making $56,593 a year.

Both landed spots in the CTA's Government and Community Relations department - known as GCR - that worked with Sandoval and his colleagues on legislative initiatives and, more broadly, serves as "the intermediary between elected officials and the CTA."

Neither Sandoval nor his daughter could be reached for comment. His daughter-in-law declined to comment.

Sandoval faces other allegations that his clout led another transit agency, Pace, to hire his son, Martin Sandoval Jr., in 2016 into a community and government relations post.

An applicant who lost out on that job sued Pace in federal court in 2017 alleging Pace, the government agency that operates public buses primarily in the suburbs, engaged in "a corrupt and unlawful hiring process" that "preselected" the senator's son "as a bribe to Sen. Sandoval for favorable treatment in the Senate Transportation Committee."

In court papers, Pace denied the accusations. The younger Martin Sandoval, who was married in March, couldn't be reached.

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