Indicted ex-commissioner negotiating plea deal

An attorney for a former Cook County commissioner says his client is negotiating a possible plea deal with federal prosecutors in a bribery and kickback case.

Word of the talks came at a status hearing Monday for Joseph Moreno and former Chicago Alderman Ambrosio Medrano.

Moreno and Medrano were arrested in June in the corruption case involving the sale of bandages to hospitals. Authorities say the pair hatched the scheme in 2010 to accept bribes for exerting their influence to get hospitals to purchase particular bandages.

Moreno’s attorney, Richard Kling, told U.S. District Judge Gary Feinerman he doesn’t expect his client to go to trial in the hospital-bandages case.

But Medrano’s attorney, Gal Pissetzky, says he isn’t negotiating a plea deal and that his client intends to go to trial.