Indicted alderman Carothers pleads not guilty
The chairman of the Chicago City Council's police and fire committee pleaded not guilty Monday to charges that he accepted home repairs worth $40,000 plus campaign money and sports tickets in exchange for fixing a zoning case.
Alderman Isaac Carothers, 54, appeared briefly before U.S. Magistrate Judge Morton Denlow and was ordered freed on a $4,500 unsecured bond.
After court, his attorney, Lawrence S. Beaumont, told reporters that Carothers would continue representing his 29th Ward while under indictment.
"He has been representing it very effectively," Beaumont said.
Carothers declined to comment and Beaumont would neither confirm nor deny that Carothers was cooperating with federal prosecutors in a corruption investigation.
Court papers filed earlier in the case say an unnamed individual wore a wire to make secret recordings at the request of prosecutors. While the individual was not named, the description in the court papers fit Carothers closely.
According to the indictment returned May 28, Carothers was key in changing the zoning of a 50-acre undeveloped site on the city's West Side. In exchange, he allegedly got $40,000 worth of painting, windows, doors and other home improvements.
He also allegedly got meals and tickets to sporting events as well as campaign money for his ward organization and for a relative who was running for Congress.
Authorities allege that developer Calvin Boender paid the bribes. He's also pleaded not guilty and was freed on a $3 million bond secured by real estate.
The charges were similar to payoff cases that for decades have sent dozens of Chicago aldermen to federal prison. William Carothers, father of the current alderman, was himself convicted of federal corruption charges in the early 1980s.
In February, former Alderman Arenda Troutman was sentenced to four years in prison for taking thousands of dollars in payoffs and campaign cash from developers.
The government's Operation Silver Shovel in the early 1990s resulted in the conviction of six aldermen after a corrupt contractor working as an undercover mole slipped bribes to various local officials for zoning changes and other favors.