Feds: Loren-Maltese a tax cheat

From the Chicago Tribune:

Feds: Loren-Maltese a tax cheat

By MIKE ROBINSON
Associated Press Writer
Published November 14, 2002, 2:04 PM CST

Prosecutors told a federal court jury Thursday that former Cicero town President Betty Loren-Maltese dipped into her political fund to buy a Cadillac and a real estate investment, taking the $353,000 as personal income but hiding it from the tax collector.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider brushed aside a defense claim that Loren-Maltese was using the money for political purposes, saying she failed to report it to avoid paying $136,000 in income taxes.

``With respect to motive, there were 136,000 reasons she didn’t report the income,’’ Schneider said in his opening statement at a trial that U.S. District Judge John F. Grady hopes will be wrapped up before Thanksgiving.

The trial comes three months after Loren-Maltese was convicted along with six others of swindling Cicero out of $12 million in a mob-related insurance scam.

Because of her conviction, the 52-year-old Loren-Maltese had to give up her official post after nine politically stormy years as town president.

Her attorneys have said she is spending at least some time in Las Vegas, where she has purchased a home for her mother and daughter, but they have declined to say if she now lives there.

Loren-Maltese has been sparing with words in her encounters with reporters this week as attorneys picked a jury for the tax trial.

Prosecutors say they have not calculated just how much time she might spend in prison as a result of her previous conviction. They say it could be only a few years or more than a decade depending on findings that Grady makes when she is sentenced at a date that has not been set.

Prosecutors say it isn’t even certain that conviction on the single count of failing to report 1994 income would add time to her sentence.

Defense attorney Terence P. Gillespie scoffed at the notion the Cadillac was for his client’s personal use, although he acknowledged that occasionally she did use it for non-political purposes.

``A car is in the gray area,’’ Gillespie said.

He also said that $300,000 she took from her campaign fund to buy an interest in a Wisconsin golf course was an investment on behalf of the campaign fund and not intended to enrich Loren-Maltese personally. The money was added to $200,000 in other funds for an investment of $500,000.

Among those convicted along with Loren-Maltese in the previous case was Michael Spano, a trucking company owner described by prosecutors as the boss of the Cicero mob.

Gillespie acknowledged that every one of the jurors had told Grady and the lawyers that they had heard of Loren-Maltese in the past and he urged them to put aside whatever they might have gleaned from news accounts.