CHICAGO _ South Side Alderman Willie B. Cochran has been charged in a 15-count indictment that alleges he shook down a lawyer and a liquor store manager.
He also was accused of pilfering money from his 20th Ward activities fund, a charity set up to host ward events and parties for constituents. He was the sole signatory on that fund's bank accounts, according to the charges.
The charges allege Cochran took out some of the money for his own personal use, including to pay for his daughter's tuition and to fund his gambling expenses. He withdrew money from the ward fund at a casino, the charges state.
The 11 counts of wire fraud, two counts of extortion and two counts of bribery come two months after the Chicago Tribune first revealed that a federal grand jury was looking into the allegations against the 20th Ward alderman.
Word of the indictment came down Wednesday morning as Cochran attended the final City Council meeting of the year. Minutes after the Tribune broke the news of the indictment, Alderman Edward Burke, 14th, walked over to Cochran, leaned over and spoke quietly to him for a couple of minutes while other aldermen were busy honoring the Chicago Cubs as the World Series trophy sat at the front of chambers.
In a text message to a Tribune reporter on Tuesday, Cochran said he hadn't been "briefed" on the charges and referred questions to his attorney, Thomas Anthony Durkin, who was not immediately available for comment.
A real estate developer told the Tribune in October that the FBI had questioned him about a donation to Cochran for a scholarship fund the alderman supports.
"I'll tell you the same thing I told them," said the developer, who asked for anonymity. "I gave him a check, I think it was for a couple hundred dollars. ... What he did with it, I have no clue."
The Chicago City Council has a long, notorious history of corruption as 29 aldermen have been convicted of crimes related to their official duties since 1972. The most recent, Isaac "Ike" Carothers, pleaded guilty in 2010 to bribery and tax charges for accepting $40,000 in home improvements for backing a developer's controversial project in his 29th Ward. His father, William, a former alderman, was convicted 27 years earlier.
Cochran, a former Chicago police officer, was elected in 2007 after his predecessor, Alderman Arenda Troutman, was arrested by the FBI on bribery charges alleging she solicited donations from developers seeking to do business in the ward. After Troutman's arrest, Cochran called on her to resign, telling the Tribune that "most people in the ward are tired of our public officials being embroiled in one controversy after another."
Troutman pleaded guilty in 2008 and was sentenced to four years in prison.
Cochran, who is considered an ally of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, won a third term in office last year, surviving a tough runoff election. He does not hold any position of power _ like a committee or caucus chairmanship _ in the council hierarchy.
According to the biography posted on his ward's website, Cochran is the youngest of 10 children. He has a master's degree in public administration from the Illinois Institute of Technology and also has a bachelor's degree in sociology. Cochran retired from the Chicago Police Department with the rank of sergeant in 2003 after 26 years on the force.
Court records hint at recent financial troubles for Cochran _ he has been the target of three foreclosure lawsuits over his personal home and laundry businesses he held a financial stake in.
State records show that since January 2015 Cochran has filed an unusually large number of revisions to his campaign finance paperwork � around 80, including 10 since early last month. Over the previous eight years, Cochran had filed only six amendments to his campaign records.
In some of the amended campaign finance reports, Cochran revealed he had paid himself out of his campaign fund. In several instances, Cochran did not report those payments until well after he filed his campaign reports with state elections officials _ in some cases more than a year or two later.
From 2012 through 2016, Cochran spent $397,574 in campaign funds. About one-third of that _ $128,297 to be specific _ went to himself, the records show.
It is not against state law for candidates to pay themselves from their campaign fund for working on their own election bid, but it is relatively rare. It's also unusual for candidates to pay themselves such a high percentage of the contributions.
Cochran is paid $116,208 a year as alderman and also collects $60,280 annually from his police pension, records show. In late 2014 he suggested that aldermen should be paid more, saying he often works 60 hours a week or more.
After winning his third term last year, Cochran told reporters he and his wife were going to celebrate by flying to Las Vegas and renting a convertible for a West Coast road trip.
Days later, he was hit with a foreclosure lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court claiming he had defaulted on the $420,000 mortgage on his Woodlawn home, according to court records. He still owed more than $384,000 on the mortgage as of November 2014, records showed.
The foreclosure was dismissed in July 2015 "due to the fact that the loan was reinstated," court records state.
Records show it was the second time Cochran and his wife had faced foreclosure stemming from the same 2006 loan. A similar lawsuit was filed in 2012 and then dismissed months later after the loan was renegotiated, according to court records.
In 2013, Cochran, who for years owned the Rainbow Brite laundromat, was named in a foreclosure lawsuit involving a string of laundromats he had a financial stake in, according to court records. That lawsuit alleged that the business owner, Alexander Fletcher, had defaulted on a $1.5 million loan involving several laundromats. It was dismissed in 2014.
