Judge delays Vrdolyak trial

A federal judge Thursday ordered a delay in the trial of former Chicago Alderman Edward R. Vrdolyak after prosecutors dumped roughly 250,000 documents on his defense team just weeks before the planned trial date of Sept. 15.

"Counsel's request (for a new trial date) is a very legitimate request," said U.S. District Judge Milton I. Shadur. "I frankly don't understand how it can be - how delivery (of documents) takes place so close to trial."

Prosecutors explained that they had just received the documents themselves from a medical school involved in the case, and that many, if not most, of the new documents are duplicate e-mails that were unable to be electronically filtered out.

In other matters, the judge ruled a preview of the government's case, known as a Santiago proffer, will remain sealed, at least until the next hearing date of Sept. 3. Should the document become public then, however, it will include transcripts complete with expletives uttered in recordings made of Vrdolyak, Shadur ruled. Vrdolyak's lawyer Mike Monico had requested the swear words be redacted.

Vrdolyak is accused of participating in a crooked land deal to sell the Scholl School of Podiatry to a particular developer at a loss to the school. His accused co-schemer, Stuart Levine, has already pleaded guilty. Vrdolyak has pleaded not guilty.

The new trial date is Nov. 4.