Patrick Daley Thompson’s attorneys argue prison time is not warranted for the former alderman

Federal prosecutors have requested for two years in prison for ex-Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson after his conviction on counts of tax evasion and mendacity to banking regulators, saying he was a savvy and complicated lawyer and public official who knew the penalties of his actions.

“His crimes were not borne out of need,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo filed late Monday. “Instead, he simply thought he could get away with paying less than what he owed, and was willing to lie to accomplish that goal.”

On Monday, Thompson’s attorneys requested for a sentence of probation saying he’s already suffered “tremendous public humiliation” and lost his regulation license and seat on the City Council.

Thompson, 52, the grandson and nephew of Chicago’s two longest-serving mayors, was convicted by a federal jury in February of two counts of mendacity to federal regulators about loans he had with the now-shuttered Washington Federal Bank for Savings in his household’s Bridgeport neighborhood.

The jury additionally discovered Thompson responsible on 5 counts of submitting false tax returns that illegally claimed mortgage curiosity deductions that he by no means paid.

U.S. District Judge Franklin Valderrama is scheduled to condemn Thompson on July 6.

In a sequence of courtroom filings Monday, Thompson’s attorneys stated prison time is not warranted for the former alderman, who already has “suffered tremendous public humiliation as a result of his conviction.”

“He has had to give up his law license and his position in public service,” legal professional Chris Gair wrote in a single submitting. “He has lost his job and his career. He has lost most of his life-savings defending himself.”

Gair additionally argued that Thompson’s crimes had been a relative drop in the bucket when put next with different tax instances introduced in Chicago’s federal courtroom. In truth, Gair stated, the indictment in opposition to Thompson alleged considered one of the smallest loss quantities to the Internal Revenue Service of any case introduced in the previous twenty years.

More than 130 individuals wrote letters to the courtroom in help of Thompson, together with a minimum of two of his former colleagues on the City Council, tenth Ward Ald. Susan Garza and Ald. Nicholas Sposato of the thirty eighth Ward.

“I found Patrick to be a hard-working legislator devoted to his 11th Ward community, and interested in debating different viewpoints carefully to make informed decisions,” Garza wrote, in response to Gair’s submitting.

Thompson’s attorneys additionally object to the authorities calling his crimes “serious,” writing that the solely justification for that label was that Thompson held elective office.

“Mr. Thompson’s position as an alderman has nothing at all to do with the severity of the offenses because they did not in any way, shape, or form involve his public office,” protection legal professional Chris Gair wrote. “(The) offenses of which he was convicted were wholly private.”

The jury’s verdict after a weeklong trial in February marked the first time a member of the Daley household has ever been convicted of a federal crime, a prospect that may have been unthinkable to many when the household was at its zenith, controlling not solely the fifth flooring of City Hall but in addition wielding affect over state and nationwide politics, together with the White House.

Under state regulation, Thompson, who represented the eleventh Ward since 2015, was compelled to resign his seat on the City Council instantly after the conviction on felony costs. Mayor Lori Lightfoot has since appointed Nicole Lee to fill the publish for the remainder of Thompson’s time period.

The costs in opposition to Thompson had been an offshoot of a bigger investigation into the collapse of Washington Federal, which uncovered a large embezzlement scheme resulting in costs in opposition to greater than a dozen former financial institution officers, workers and clients.

At Thompson’s trial, Gair had sought to pin the blame on the financial institution and its former president, John Gembara, saying Thompson had nothing to do with producing the inaccurate tax varieties that wound up on his returns. Gembara was discovered hanged in the dwelling of a buyer days earlier than the financial institution was shuttered, and his dying was dominated a suicide.

The protection workforce has additionally portrayed Thompson as an trustworthy however “frazzled” man, always torn between his duties as alderman, industrial actual property lawyer and father, and admittedly missing when it got here to specializing in the trivialities of his taxes.

Gair additionally informed jurors that the U.S. legal professional’s office was bent on lastly nailing a Daley.

Prosecutors, nevertheless, stated Thompson, an completed industrial actual property legal professional, knew precisely what he was doing when he tried to cover the full $269,000 in principal and curiosity he owed from regulators in the wake of Washington Federal’s collapse.

After receivers for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. confronted Thompson with proof that he’d taken advances of $20,000 and $89,000 from Washington Federal in 2013 and 2014, the alderman feigned shocked, in response to prosecutors.

In their sentencing submitting on Monday, prosecutors wrote that Thompson had many probabilities to return clear however as an alternative “repeatedly chose to maintain this irregular and cozy arrangement with Washington Federal.”

“The only reasonable inference is that (Thompson), being a sophisticated real estate attorney and public official, continued to engage with Washington Federal because it allowed him to have a highly unusual (at best) relationship with a bank,” the submitting argued.

The relationship, prosecutors stated, “allowed him to periodically obtain substantial amounts of money without any loan paperwork or other obligation to pay back the funds by a date certain.”

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