State News
Former Indiana mayor, aides to pay $108 million
HAMMOND, Ind. (AP) — A federal judge Thursday ordered ex-East Chicago Mayor Robert Pastrick and two former aides to pay $108 million in civil damages in an alleged sidewalks-for-votes scheme.
Pastrick was never charged criminally, though other members of the so-called Sidewalk Six were sentenced to prison. A phone rang unanswered at the office of Patrick's attorney, Michael Bosch, when The Associated Press called seeking comment.
The federal racketeering suit filed by the state in 2004 alleged Pastrick and others ran the city as a "corrupt enterprise" and spent $24 million in public money on private driveways, patios and walkways to court voters in the 1999 Democratic primary.
Attorney General Greg Zoeller said U.S. District Judge James Moody's decision marked the first time a city government had been adjudged a corrupt organization under federal racketeering laws.
"I am enormously pleased that the federal judge awarded triple damages against former Mayor Pastrick and the other remaining defendants as a symbol of how brazen and shameless the public corruption was in the municipal government of East Chicago during the Pastrick regime," said Zoeller.
The triple damages were assessed against Pastrick, former aide James Fife III and former City Council President Frank Kollintzas. The damages were calculated based not only on the money allegedly spent to buy votes, but other costs associated with public corruption, including a bond issue that became necessary after the city's general fund was depleted.
When Pastrick left office the city had a deficit of $17 million, the order said.
Pastrick, the city's mayor for 32 years, left office after the Indiana Supreme Court in 2004 found Pastrick's campaign was tainted with corruption and ordered a rerun of the 2003 Democratic primary.
Pastrick and Fife agreed to accept judgment by default, the order said. Phone numbers listed under Fife's name in northwest Indiana were disconnected.
Kollintzas fled the country in 2005 before he was sentenced to 11 years in prison for his role in the scheme.
Other co-defendants settled with the state.
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