Mole in Hired Truck probe may go free
December 23, 2005
BY STEVE WARMBIR AND TIM NOVAK

Staff Reporters City supervisor Robert Ricciarelli took more than $30,000 in bribes from Hired Truck companies, got free construction work at his home and got his wife a trucking job -- but may never spend a day behind bars.

Ricciarelli's secret cooperation in the federal investigation of the Hired Truck Program is apparently so valuable that prosecutors, in an unusual move, are asking for only "some term of imprisonment," without specifying any time.

That could be as little as a day, Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie Ruder acknowledged under questioning by U.S. District Judge James Holderman, who will determine the final sentence.

Ricciarelli's attorney, Douglas Rathe, plans to argue that his client should get no time in prison.

Ricciarelli, 45, pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of mail fraud in federal court, nearly one year to the day after he turned himself in to the FBI after learning there was a warrant out for his arrest.

CAUGHT IN SCANDAL
37 people have been charged in the federal government's investigation of Chicago's Hired Truck Program, including 21 city workers.

26 of them have pleaded guilty, including 14 city workers.

20 have been sentenced to terms from 3 years of probation to 7 years in prison.

1 former city worker will never stand trial. He died after he was thrown from a horse.

After talking to FBI agents and Ruder for several hours, Ricciarelli was let go, and the charges against him were secretly dropped, so he could operate as a mole within the city's Department of Streets and Sanitation.

Began cooperating after arrest
Ricciarelli is believed to have helped the federal government not only in its investigation of the scandal-plagued Hired Truck Program but also in its broadening investigation of illegal City Hall hiring practices.

Ricciarelli took cash and gifts from 11 trucking companies that got Hired Truck work in the Department of Streets and Sanitation between 1999 and 2004.

Ricciarelli was a member of Mayor Daley's Hispanic Democratic Organization. A couple of times a year, another political operative, low-level city employee John "Quarters" Boyle, would give Ricciarelli's boss, Daniel Katalinic, a list of Hired Truck companies to keep on the job. Katalinic would instruct Ricciarelli to meet with the head of the Hired Truck Program, Angelo Torres, to make sure it happened.

All four men have pleaded guilty.

In addition to cash bribes, Ricciarelli received free construction work on a pool at his Chicago home, airline tickets and a job for his wife from a Hired Truck company.

Ricciarelli, the son of a former city worker, began cooperating shortly after his arrest last Christmas and continued working for the city until May.

He and his family have moved to Carol Stream.