Free Republic

Chicago cop was federal ‘mole’ in corruption cases BY DAN MIHALOPOULOS, FRANK MAIN AND STEVE WARMBIR Staff Reporters; dmihalopoulos@suntimes.com Last Modified: Sep 3, 2012 12:02PM Ali Haleem is the self-proclaimed “Mayor of 63rd Street,” a friendly Chicago cop who offered his expertise to FBI anti-terrorism efforts and worked to build trust between police and the Southwest Side’s Arab community. But for four years, Haleem also used some of the skills he learned as an undercover narcotics officer to act as a confidential informant for federal investigators probing wide-ranging political corruption, according to sources and public records. Haleem is the unnamed...

‘Thousands of dollars” in state grants awarded to bolster health care in minority communities instead went to pay campaign workers for former state Sen. Rickey Hendon and Democratic candidates Hendon supported, a Chicago nurse has told investigators. The nurse, Tonja Cook, 44, detailed her allegations in four interviews with state and federal authorities between October 2010 and May 2011, records show. In June 2011, federal prosecutors in Springfield charged Cook and another Chicago nurse, Margaret A. Davis, with siphoning $500,000 from state grant funds for Davis’ “personal use.” Hendon, 58, a West Side Democrat who unexpectedly retired from the Senate...