Chicago Tribune tells another blatant lie for U.S. Attorney

Ernie Souchak, Editor-in-Chief

The Chicago Tribune is at it again - reporting what it knows to be a blatant lie for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago.

The lie this time involves the Tribune's reporting on habitual criminal and former Rezko mole John Thomas' most recent arrest for fraud. And the underreported story of the premature termination of his probation for a previous fraud conviction.

The Tribune was fully aware that in 2010, John Thomas was sentenced to three years probation for crimes he committed in New York. And the Trib also knew that in 2011, Thomas petitioned the court to terminate his probation after only one year.

Here's the catch: Thomas' probation was officially "terminated without objection".

In other words, the U.S. Attorney's Office was perfectly fine with Thomas being released from probation after serving only one year of his three-year sentence.

However, now the Tribune and the U.S. Attorney's Office want you to believe his probation "expired":

"Federal prosecutors alleged that Thomas began scheming in the Riverdale deal just months after his probation for the New York conviction expired."  read more...

Really?

So after virtually ignoring the fact that Thomas was given a gift of three years probation instead of five years in prison for his crimes...

And then completely ignoring the fact that the feds gave Thomas another gift by allowing his probation to be "terminated without objection" after only one year...

Enabling the Village of Riverdale to gift Thomas hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's dollars...

The Tribune now wants to sell us the blatant lie that Thomas' probation "expired".

Wow! That's brass.

And let's not forget that the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Tribune have a well documented history of telling lies when it comes to John Thomas.

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: <redacted>
To: "jskass" <jskass@tribune.com>
Sent: Friday, December 18, 2009 6:42:03 PM
Subject: Chicago Tribune - John Thomas

To whom it may concern

John Thomas was a mole for the FBI in the case in Illinois against Tony Rezko and others. The Chicago Tribune was aware of the fact and chose not to write a story about him at the behest of Patrick Fitzgerald (U.S Attorney Northern Dist IL). The Tribune eventually wrote a story about John Thomas, however the story they wrote was not accurate. My source at the Chicago Tribune claims that when Patrick Fiztgerald asked the Chicago Tribune to sit on the Thomas story, claiming it could put his life in danger, the Chicago Tribune refused. The Chicago Tribune told Mr Fitzgerald that they were going to run the story anyway. It was only when Patrick Fitzgerald told the Chicago Tribune that if they ran the story that it would affect the Presidential election did the Chicago Tribune agree not to run the story. My source at the Chicago Tribune confirmed this meant Obama. My source also informed me of other information that would be of interest to the people of Illinois that was not being reported in the Chicago Tribune.

The source at the Tribune referred to in the email has since been revealed to have been John Chase.

Truth is - the Tribune and the U.S. Attorney's Office are working their own con.