March 11--Former state Rep. Derrick Smith lost his bid to overturn his bribery conviction Friday after a federal appeals court ruled that using an informant's undercover recordings without calling him to the witness stand did not violate trial rules.
Smith, 52, is nearly done serving a five-month prison sentence for his 2014 conviction on one count each of bribery and extortion for pocketing a $7,000 bribe from a trusted low-level campaign operative who was secretly working for the FBI. As part of the law enforcement sting, Smith was led to think a day care operator in his district was willing to pay a cash bribe in exchange for a letter of support from him for a $50,000 state grant.
The West Side Democrat argued in his appeal that prosecutors had violated hearsay rules as well as his constitutional right to confront witnesses against him by using recordings made by the informant, a shady ex-con known only as "Pete," without calling him to testify.
But in a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the recordings made by Pete were properly played for the jury to show the context of Smith's statements -- including one where he referred to the bribe money as "cheddar."
"Smith's own words and deeds convicted him," Judge Frank Easterbrook wrote in the six-page opinion.
Smith is due to be released from a minimum-security federal prison camp in Duluth, Minn., on March 19, records show. In addition to the short prison stint, Coleman ordered Smith to perform 360 hours of community service when released.
Smith's 10-day trial centered on the dozens of telephone and face-to-face conversations secretly recorded by Pete. A little more than a week after Smith signed a letter of support on his official state letterhead, the informant secretly recorded a meeting in Smith's car in which Pete counted out seven wads of $1,000 cash each and handed the money to Smith in a white envelope.
"One, two, three, four, five. Damn, stuck together. Six, seven," Pete said in the recording played at trial.
The payoff came in the days before a contested Democratic primary in 2012 as Smith was struggling to raise campaign money for his first election after his appointment and was busy knocking on doors to raise his name recognition, the recordings showed.
Smith's trial attorneys argued that the lawmaker had succumbed to the repeated urging of a slick and shady government informant who was "playing both sides of the fence," collecting more than $25,000 from the government for his undercover work while also taking money from Smith for his campaign work.
After Smith was charged, he became the first lawmaker tossed out of the Illinois House in more than a century. But the longtime political operative won re-election that year. During the primary race in 2013, House Speaker Michael Madigan's political operation poured more than $70,000 into Smith's campaign, but he lost a five-way contest for his party's nomination.
jmeisner@tribpub.com
