NATION : Chicago Ethics Chief Resigns
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CHICAGO — The man chosen to enforce Chicago’s ethics laws resigned today, one day after officials learned that he had been implicated in alleged campaign fund-raising violations in Louisiana.
The resignation of Gary M. O’Neill, who started work as executive director of the Board of Ethics on Dec. 12, was announced in a statement from the board.
O’Neill, who helped Louisiana’s Commissioner of Insurance Doug Green finance his successful 1987 campaign, was a defendant in a lawsuit by Louisiana’s ethics board. The lawsuit accused Green of attempting to conceal the source of $2.2 million in contributions to his 1987 campaign.
The lawsuit was thrown out last year when the ethics board’s enforcement provisions were declared unconstitutional by a state judge. A re-hearing of the issue is pending.
“Obviously the Board of Ethics has egg all over their face because they’re supposed to make the appropriate checks” before hiring someone, said J. Terrence Bruner, executive director of the Better Government Assn., a watchdog group.
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