Ex-legislator gets 2 years' probation
By John McCormick
Tribune staff reporter
Published December 22, 2005

Former state Rep. Patricia Bailey refused to leave the public stage quietly Wednesday as she alleged a group of Chicago aldermen had conspired to chase her from office, said her conviction was politically motivated and even commented that her sentencing judge had suffered a "bad hair day."

Bailey, 52, made the remarks outside the earshot of the judge who ordered 2 years of probation and community service following her conviction on felony perjury and forgery charges stemming from her use of false addresses on election documents.

Although Bailey avoided the 2 to 5 years in prison that prosecutors had sought, she has been forced to resign her $46,500-a-year Cook County job (as a probation officer) and her $57,600-a-year legislative post. She will be prohibited from holding a government job for 5 years after she completes her sentence.

Committeemen in the 6th District are expected to appoint a successor as early as next week to complete the year that remains in Bailey's term. Democratic Party sources say the front-runner is Esther Golar, an information services coordinator for the Chicago police.

Golar, who could not be reached for comment, is one of seven Democrats who have filed candidacy papers in the 6th District for the March 21 primary.

The charges against Bailey, who was first elected in 2002, were filed after the Tribune reported that she appeared to live outside the South Side district she represented.

Despite Bailey's claims of a conspiracy among aldermen to force her from office, the history of the case shows no evidence of that. Although the Tribune routinely receives tips, that was not the case in this story.

It started after a reporter's visit to an abandoned apartment that was listed on Bailey's voter registration. The uninhabited apartment, owned by a church, was discovered when she failed to return repeated phone calls for comment about her March 2004 primary contest against former Death Row inmate Aaron Patterson.

"I was not their choice from the inception," said Bailey, who once had the backing of Cook County Commissioner John Daley. "This has been planned a long time."

Judge Diane Cannon told Bailey that she would not be sent to prison because she had no prior criminal record. "I will give you the opportunity to make the community you represented--on paper--a better place through community service," said the judge, who ordered 100 hours of service work.

Cannon told Bailey she had violated the trust of her constituents and then recounted testimony from Bailey's late-November trial in which a witness described how Bailey had said every rental unit she saw in Englewood was "crap."

"Maybe, just maybe, everything in Englewood is `crap' because nobody wants to represent Englewood and live in Englewood and make it a wonderful community," Cannon said.

Bailey denied she had ever bad-mouthed the neighborhood. "She turned that around to make it sound like I was saying it was the entire district," she said.

The former legislator also accused the judge of being swayed by politics. "I think the judge did what she was told to do," she said outside the courtroom.

But Vincenzo Chimera, an assistant state attorney general, defended the judge and the evidence against Bailey. "She's just trying to find excuses," she said. "This was a very solid case."

Chimera said Bailey had lied to the public, something that cannot be allowed among elected officials. "She should have acknowledged what she did," he said.