and the big news out of Proviso

A shoe has dropped in Melrose Park. See Capitol Fax Blog (Rich Miller):

The former chief and six other former and current officers and employees of the Melrose Park Police Department operated the department as an illegal racketeering enterprise for at least a decade between 1996 and 2006, according to a federal grand jury indictment returned today, announced Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. The indictment alleges that the former chief, Vito R. Scavo, and other defendants defrauded west suburban Melrose Park and its citizens by using police department personnel and property to operate several private security guard companies and provide personal services to Scavo; extorted village businesses into using security guard services provided by companies that Scavo and others controlled; and that Scavo committed individual and corporate tax fraud and improperly compensated police department employees who performed personal chores for him with compensatory time off that they had not earned. Scavo, who was village police chief from 1995 until he resigned in September 2006, was charged with racketeering conspiracy along with Deputy Police Chief Gary Montino and Michael “Mickey” Caliendo, former civilian supervisor of part-time police officers.

As part of the alleged conspiracy, Scavo and two other defendants, Guy Ric Cervone, a former police lieutenant recently promoted to commander, and German Cepeda, a former police department janitor and current code enforcement inspector for the village, allegedly obstructed a grand jury investigation of their conduct and tampered with potential grand jury witnesses.

Ric Cervone is the VP of the District 89 (Maywood and Melrose Park elementary schools) board of education.

CRIME, U.S. Attorney to announce charges

Capitol Fax Blog (Rich Miller):

US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has scheduled a 2 o’clock press conference for today “to announce new criminal charges in an ongoing public corruption investigation.”

Participants will include: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Robert D. Grant, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Kenneth T. Lag, Inspector-in-Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Chicago; and James Vandenberg, Special Agent-in-Charge of Investigations for the U.S. Department of Labor Office of Inspector General in Chicago.

Hmmm....

Wasn't the Department of Labor a participant in the raid of the Melrose Park police department?

[UPDATE: It was Al Sanchez of the Hispanic Democratic Organization. See Capitol Fax Blog.]

[UPDATE2: The Hispanic Democratic Organization is associated with Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and is not active in Proviso Township as far as I know.]