Watching the Detectives

 
Cook County Jail’s security, healthcare and living conditions violate the inmates’ constitutional rights, according to a recently concluded investigation by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago.
 
The 17-month probe, which U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald discussed Thursday at the Dirksen Federal Building, alleges that jail staff abused inmates; that inmates lacked adequate healthcare; and that living conditions, including fire safety and sanitation, were not up to par. The jail could face a civil suit if conditions do not improve.
 
“There are certain minimum conditions that a jail has to comply with so that it doesn’t offend the constitution, “Fitzgerald said. “It appears pretty clear that the Cook County Jail fell well short of those constitutional conditions.”
 
According to a letter delivered to Cook County Board President Todd H. Stroger and Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart by Fitzgerald and Grace Chung Becker, acting assistant attorney general for civil rights, there exists a “culture of [officers] abusing inmates” at the jail.
 
According to the letter, officers often gang up on inmates, meting out beatings for offenses such as cussing, arguing and refusing to follow instructions. The letter cites one instance in which a mentally ill inmate exposed himself to a female officer. The man was taken into a clothing room, restrained and beaten by a group of officers, the letter said.
 
While Fitzgerald said he does not condone inmates insulting officers, he condemned the jail employees’ response.
 
“The response is not to engage in beatings of inmates- certainly not organized beatings-and not beatings that end up with inmates being hospitalized,” he said.
 
Knife fights and violence between inmates occurs often; over the course of one week in March 35 fights broke out, according to the Justice Department.
 
Violence is not the only factor contributing to the inmates’ plight; during the first four months of 2008, three inmates committed suicide because of inadequate mental health care, according to the Justice Department. The department also criticized the inmates’ physical care, reporting amputations and infections resulting from inattention and staffing limitations.
 
Fitzgerald noted that the jail only has one dentist for more than 9,500 inmates. The dentist can only perform extractions-more than 25 percent of which have resulted in infection. Other complaints include electrical issues, such as exposed wiring, faulty plumbing, unsanitary food service and general uncleanliness.
 
“We pay more taxes here than anywhere else in the country,” said Fitzgerald. “The notion that we can’t afford to meet the constitutional requirements is unacceptable,” he said.
 
If conditions do not improve after 49 days, the United States can file a lawsuit that would force the jail to take action, according to the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act of 1997.
 
Fitzgerald, however, seemed confident that the Cook County Sheriff’s Office and the Cook County Board would comply. “We’ve had unfettered access to the Cook County Jail and their full cooperation,” he said. He later added, “Every indication we’ve seen from them is that they recognize what the problem is. And now the rubber hits the road.”
 
The question now is where that road will lead. In the early 80s, pre-trial detainees filed a lawsuit against the jail regarding overcrowding. According to former Chicago Reader staff writer Steve Bogira, author of “Courtroom 302,” a book about the Cook County Criminal Courthouse, the jail is still overcrowded.
 
“This is a testament to our unwillingness as a society to do the right thing for people who are in jail,” he said.
 
Bogira said the county acts too slowly when it comes to poor people and minorities.
 
“It doesn’t take a genius to see the connection between poverty and crime,” he said. “Until we address this I don’t see how we can change things much. However, this is an attempt. What matters now is the follow-through.”

Bob Barker, retired game show host of “The Price is Right,” testified Tuesday at City Hall in support of a controversial ordinance that would make spaying and neutering mandatory in Chicago. Under this legislation, all cats and dogs would be required to undergo the necessary operation once they reach six months of age.
 
“Overpopulation is one of the most tragic animal problems that we have in our country,” Barker said. “There are thousands, probably millions of people across the country who have devoted [themselves] to trying to find homes for surplus animals. And these people… are doomed to fail,” he said.
 
While some at the raucous meeting supported the ordinance, others including a group of veterinarians argued that it is seriously flawed.
 
Ald. Edward M. Burke (14th) and Ald. Virginia A. Rugai (19th) presented the ordinance, which seeks to reduce the number of homeless dogs and cats in Chicago and to cut down on attacks by aggressive animals, before a Joint Committee on Finance and License and Consumer Protection.
 
“Apathy sets in…. And when we get to this wall… the only answer is legislation,” Barker said.
 
According to Barker, the movement to make spaying and neutering mandatory is “sweeping across the country” like a “tsunami.” Barker pointed to Los Angeles, which recently passed a similar legislation, as well as Dallas and San Antonio, Texas.
 
The ordinance is “win-win,” Barker said, adding that it will ease animal suffering as well as save taxpayers money on costly euthanizations—the result of overpopulation.
 
Barker was one of many witnesses who spoke in favor of the ordinance, including Paula Fasseas, founder of PAWS Chicago; Jordan Matyas, Illinois state director of The Humane Society of the United States; an animal behaviorist and a representative from the city’s animal control department
 
Burke and Rugai introduced the ordinance after a pit bull attack left a Chicago woman hospitalized last May. In addition to cutting down on attacks like this, the aldermen said that the ordinance would target dog-fighting rings operated by Chicago gang members.
 
Despite Barker’s support, the legislation’s merits were less than “best in show” to many alderman and veterinarians in attendance.
 
“I agree with everything you’ve done before, until today,” Ald. Ray Suarez (31st) told Barker. “I don’t like when the government tries to get involved in everything to solve problems. Right now we’re starting with pets… What’s the next step?” he asked.
 
The issue of government control and its effect on responsible pet owners was a common point of dissent among city council members, many of whom thought the law would have no effect on gang members, who already disregard written laws.
 
The veterinarians, including Steve Dullard, chairman of the legislative committee of the Illinois State Veterinary Medical Association, spoke out against the ordinance, citing flaws in data detailing the impact of spaying and neutering on aggressive pets. They also argued that the mandate could discourage pet owners who fail to comply with the ordinance from seeking rabies vaccinations for fear of retribution.
 
The game show host’s presence, coupled with an opinionated crowd, created an atmosphere comparable to one of Barker’s broadcasts. Upon taking the stand to loud applause, Barker said, “I think the thing that I miss most about ‘The Price is Right’ is the applause. No, I’ll correct that, the thing I miss most about ‘The Price is Right’ is the money.”
 
Cheering mingled with dissension during the lengthy hearing, which was recessed until a later date. Fifty-two witnesses plan to speak in favor of the ordinance, and 31 against it.

Former Ald. Arenda Troutman pleaded guilty Wednesday at the Dirksen Federal Building, reversing her previous not guilty plea to a 13-count indictment charging her with using her aldermanic position to hatch deals with local real estate developers.
 
Troutman will likely receive a prison sentence of 4 to 5 years.
 
Last January, Troutman loudly defended herself at a news conference following her arrest. “I have been an upstanding alderman for 17 years,” she said, her voice rising with emotion. “I have fought on behalf of the people, not just of the 20th Ward, but on behalf of all of the people in the City of Chicago,” she said.
 
In stark contrast to the bright, multi-colored dress draped over her statuesque frame, Troutman’s demeanor was subdued at Wednesday’s hearing. Her lawyer, Sam Adam Jr., placed a hand on her back as U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo called the court to order.
 
When the former alderman entered her guilty plea, her tones were so hushed that the judge asked her to repeat herself.
 
The indictment charged Troutman with 13 counts of mail fraud, bribery, extortion, tax fraud and making false statements to a financial institution. Tuesday, she pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of tax evasion. The other 11 counts will dismissed at sentencing, according to Randall Samborn, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
 
By pleading guilty, Troutman admitted to participating in and helping to devise a scheme by which she traded her aldermanic clout for contributions to her political organizations and to herself. According to the plea agreement, the scheme lasted from 2002 until January 2007.
 
In an interview after the proceedings, Adam said Troutman pleaded guilty “to get this behind her, to accept responsibility and to make sure that her children have a future with her.”
 
Troutman also admitted to instructing real estate developers to funnel payments to the 20th Ward Women’s Auxiliary, an organization with which she was involved, in order to hide the fact that money was changing hands. According to the plea, the charitable organization never went through the necessary steps to establish itself as a not-for-profit.
 
Troutman also admitted to failing to include $10,000 she received from a real estate developer on her federal income tax return, and to lying about her income.
 
Troutman’s sentencing is scheduled for December 3, at which time she faces a total maximum sentence of 23 years’ imprisonment and a fine of $350,000. However, given factors such as her lack of previous convictions, this sentence could be reduced to 45 to 57 months’ imprisonment in addition to a possible supervised release, restitution and fine.
 
Troutman was arrested at her home in a January 2007 sting operation on federal bribery charges for allegedly taking part in a shady real estate deal. She allegedly took a $5,000 bribe and planned to accept a $10,000 bribe in exchange for using her office to hasten the development of residential and commercial property around 5730 S. Halsted St. She was also promised space in the development and a $5,000 political contribution, according to the federal complaint.
 
The FBI reportedly caught Troutman on tape talking to the real estate developer—who was involved in the sting—over a wire worn by an unnamed middleman. The middleman began cooperating with authorities after being investigated in a mortgage fraud scheme.
 
Troutman was appointed to the Chicago City Council in 1991, and was re-elected three times to the 20th Ward aldermanic seat. Following her arrest and indictment, she lost her bid for re-election to former police sergeant Willie B. Cochran.

Mike Roman’s electric guitar weaves a spicy trail through the summertime air. He tucks his chin close to the collar of his brown button-up shirt, his fingers flying over the strings, his foot tapping in time to the music. “It’s time to dance the cha-cha.” The words float across the crowd, mingled with bright brass and summer rain maracas.
 
“To me, when you say ‘Cha-Cha Time!’ you can put in the word ‘cha-cha,’ you can put in any word you want,” Joseph Miroballi enthuses, “It’s cocktail time! It’s naptime! It’s let’s-go-out-and-have-beer-time! It’s a song that talks about a moment when you stop doing everything that is cumbersome and laborious and you just have a good time,” he says.
 
Miroballi may sound like your average fan, extolling the virtues of Roman, one of his favorite musicians, but he’s actually an attorney. For that matter, so is Roman. The two met 15 years ago at an Illinois Trial Lawyers Association dinner, where they bonded over their mutual love for Carlos Santana. Years later, Miroballi would co-produce Roman’s album, “Cha-Cha Time!”
 
Roman is the 55-year-old frontman of Mike Roman and the Tellstars, as well as a successful criminal and immigration lawyer practicing out of an office in the Southeast Side of Chicago. Dressed to the nines in a snappy electric blue shirt and silky tie, Roman exudes suave confidence. When he talks about his music he leans back in his chair, lounging in a manner that suggests he’s more used to cradling a guitar than a briefcase.
 
For Roman, the not-so-twin passions of music and the law go hand in hand. “When I cannot open one door as a lawyer, I open it with music,” he says. The lawyer became rather infamous among Chicago legal circles in May when he attempted to give a copy of his CD to R. Kelly during the rapper’s trial, after which he was escorted from the courtroom. While local papers ridiculed Roman’s actions, he insists that Kelly had requested a copy of the CD. “It was not my intention to create any kind of disturbance,” he says.
 
Miroballi laughs slightly as he remembers the episode, “Mike makes his own opportunities,” he says, “If the opportunity doesn’t present itself, then he’ll make it present itself.”
 
Roman’s been making his own opportunities since he was a kid, growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico. His father died when he was a little over a year old. “I don’t remember him, other than a picture frame,” he says, his voice still heavy with the accent of his home country.
 
He did, however, know that his father played the violin, and from an early age he scratched out tunes while his aunt played the piano, songs like “Torno a Surriento,” a passion-filled Italian standard that was later covered by Elvis Presley.
 
According to Roman, Guadalajara was also the birthplace of the mariachis, and a congregation of the musicians used to practice about three blocks from his house. He and his friends would head down to watch them play. “I would very patiently watch and play-especially the guitar players. And that’s how I perked up interest in traditional Hispanic music,” he says.
 
Roman has been a long-time fan of Carlos Santana and his unique sound, “You listen to two, three notes and you know its Carlos.” The lawyer-cum-cha-cha king would eventually get a chance to jam with Santana, after Jose “Chepito” Areas, the band’s timbale player, caught Roman’s act with the Tellstars at Northern Illinois University.
 
The lawyer put the “Mike Roman” in Mike Roman and the Tellstars after he moved to the South Side of Chicago in 1963. He lived on Commercial Avenue with his mother; sister Delia; and Pachita and Jimmy Martinez, his aunt and uncle.
 
Roman had a tough time of it at Our Lady of Guadalupe elementary school; while he struggled to make the transition from Mexican teen to American, the nuns told the other students that they were not to speak to him in Spanish. More than anything, the young man wanted to go back to Mexico.
 
But, at home, Roman found solace in his Uncle Jimmy, who used to be a drummer in a band called the Hungry Five. “He would ask me to sit down with him and pick out a certain drum or percussion pattern,” Roman says. He remembers learning to play composer Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” from the movie “10.”
 
Martinez was a steel worker, a charismatic man who everyone called “the life of the party,” a phrase Roman’s sister, Delia Joyce, also uses to describe her brother.
 
“My Uncle James spent a lot of time with my brother, and I would say he was a father figure to both of us,” says Joyce. Roman himself became a second father to Delia’s son, Danny. He was the boy’s godfather and took him to his christening. He also felt his sister’s pang of loss when Danny drowned in Lake Michigan 17 years ago.
 
Uncle Jimmy met a tragic end as well; he died in a car accident only one year after Roman came over to America. But Roman had already heard the call of music. He and a group of kids from his block formed a band when they were in 6th grade and started playing shows around the Southeast Side. They would rent out concert halls and charge admission-that money, along with pennies pinched from odd jobs and paper routes, fueled Roman, who went on to the University of Illinois, and later DePaul University College of Law.
 
“We don’t come from a wealthy family,” says Joyce, “I think that my brother was pretty much able to make it on his own.”
 
According to Roman, he has indeed made it-both on the stage and in the courtroom. His first case was a real heater-that’s law slang for a media favorite. A young Hispanic man was charged with kidnap and rape, even though he was at his own wedding at the time of the incident.
 
“No state’s attorney wanted to try it, because it was a loser. But it was a catch-22, because they didn’t want to drop it. They knew if they dropped it, we’re going to sue the City of Chicago,” he says. Needless to say, the solid gold alibi, along with Roman’s defense, won the case.
 
The lawyer has also rubbed tailored elbows with some pretty big Chicago personalities. During college, Roman worked as campaign manager for former Chicago alderman and mayoral candidate Edward Vrdolyak, who is currently heading to trial for allegedly corrupt real estate practices. The young Roman used to play with his band at Vrdolyak’s events.
 
Looking back on his former mentor, who took the college student under his wing, Roman laughs slightly. “I’m going to be giving him my album-but I’m not going to do it in court,” he says.