17Dec/12

Rahm Emanuel takes control of the “Muscle”

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Hugo Floriani, Investigative Reporter

Any politician who wants to wield supreme power in Chicago must control the Cook County State Attorney's Office.

The Chicago Sun Times, Rahm Emanuel's Pravda, took a big step toward giving that power to the Mayor.

For those not familiar with Chicago politic's, put simply, it's a protection racket. And the Cook County State Attorney's Office is the "Muscle".

Here's how it works:  Eight years ago, Mayor Daley controlled "The Machine". So it was dictated - probably not by His Honor himself, but by others - that there'd be no real investigation into the death of David Koschman, and that the Chicago media would ignore the event.

Why? Because the man responsible for David Koschman's premature death was a Daley family member, and, therefore, a protected member of "The Machine".

Fast forward to present day:  The current Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, needs to control the States Attorney's Office.  So his journalistic minions at the Chicago Sun Times resurrect, and then use, the tragedy of David Koschman's death, to dismantle the power of State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, and thereby future discredit the"Daley Machine," so Rahm can replace it with the "Emanuel Politburo".

It's that simple. And it's that disreputable.

The investigation into the death of David Koschman was derailed eight years ago due to political power.

It was resurrected in order to gain political power.

Justice doesn't figure into the equation.

Welcome to the People's Republic of Crook County.

The Cook County States Attorney's Office is the "Muscle" in Chicago, and Rahm "Never let a crisis go to waste" Emanuel, is well on his way to taking control of it.

Bye, bye, Anita

 

Related Story on how the "Muscle" and the media operates in Chicago:

Annabel Melongo, the Machine's Political Prisoner.

 

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7Dec/12

Vanecko indictment doesn’t close the Koschman investigation

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Editorial Staff, Illinois PayToPlay

There remains the matter of how the investigation of David Koschman’s death died before it ever really got started back in 2004.

As some in the Chicago media applaud themselves for having doggedly pursued the case for over eight years – a self-serving, silly exaggeration – serious unanswered questions remain.

The scope of those unanswered questions was suggested by the judge who kicked-off the re-examination – if there ever was an original search for the truth - of Koschman’s death as reported by the Sun Times:

“Cook County Circuit Judge Michael P. Toomin in announcing his ruling that a special prosecutor will re-examine the 2004 death of David Koschman after being punched by Richard J. “R.J.” Vanecko, a nephew of then-Mayor Richard M. Daley” stated that: A decided interest in preventing or impeding the prosecution, a denigration of the existing exculpatory evidence and, probably the most prominent impropriety, the fiction of self-defense, supported only by oft-repeated conclusions that David Koschman was the aggressor, a host of statements in the exhibits, detectives, particularly Detective [James] Gilger, the last to be quoted, Superintendent Phil Cline, Mr. O’Brien and the state’s attorney herself.

IP2P reported in April 2012 that: 

It’s beyond dispute that Cline played a pivotal role in assuring that the investigation into the fatal assault on David Koschman was stunted by the ‘oft-repeated conclusions that David Koschman was the aggressor’. So, how long have the feds known that Cline was, according to a June 2011 email sent from Daniel T. Frawley to a confidential source simply referred to as Bob, a protective buddy of Frank McMahon?”

The initial inquiry into the Koschman death didn’t die on its own.  It was killed, and buried, by cabal of city and county officials who wanted it to go away. Any other explanation of what happened in 2004 requires a willing suspension of disbelief.

Consequently, the story of David Koschman’s tragic death will not be completed until we know who spiked the initial investigation.

So we wonder: Are there more indictments yet to come from the Grand Jury?  Or is Vanecko the end of it?  

If his indictment is all there is, we predict Vanecko will plea bargain a sentence of several years probation.

Rather than a public civil trial, negotiations with Vanecko’s legal counsel will lead to an out-of-court settlement involving an undisclosed payment to Mrs. Koschman for the wrongful death of her only son.  

The Sun Times will applaud itself for having played a key role in bringing closure to the Koschman family.

And, the current City Hall regime will privately celebrate having orchestrated a puppet show that brought embarrassment to the previous regime.

Mission accomplished.

And it will be just one more case of justice delayed being justice denied.

The Chicago Way.  


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26Mar/12

Sun Times Watchdogs pounce on an eight year old story: Sic’ em dogs!

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Annabel Kent, Chicago Media Critic

This dated picture of former Mayor Daley and current State’s Attorney Lisa Alvarez was recently brought to the attention of two Sun Times Watchdogs by “lawyers for the family of David Koschman, who died after the police say Vanecko punched him in the face.”  (Well, shoot, the dogs can’t find every bone in the Koschman story.)

The photo was found on Alvarez’s Facebook page, by the Koschman family lawyers.

The same Watchdogs who posted the photo, also wrote an article entitled “Did Daley nephew Vanecko confess to fatal punch?” that appeared on March 21, 2012.  The news in the article – that Vanecko may have confessed, soon after the event, to hitting Koschman – is attributed to “attorneys for Koschman’s family” who made the assertion “in a court filing Wednesday.”

So, about eight years after the death of David Koschman, the real watchdogs – as in alert canines trained to attack nefarious characters – turn out to be…drum roll…the Koschman lawyers, and not so much the byline Watchdogs.

Awakened to the barking, the Sun Times Watchdogs, trot toward the commotion, arriving on the crime scene, panting, a couple of years short of a human decade later – or, in dog years, 70 years late.

You suppose their tardiness has anything at all to do with having a new mayoral regime, open to exposing the…ah, deficiencies…of the previous one?  Or, the fact that Mayor Emanuel has several campaign finance contributors on the new Sun Times board?

Bow wow.

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