Illinois GOP Official Denies Claim He Received Bribes

Cook County’s Republican Party chairman was engulfed in a firestorm of controversy on Wednesday after federal prosecutors disclosed a tape recording of an alleged mob boss who boasted that he paid $10,000 monthly bribes to the GOP official when he served as Cook County undersheriff.

James Dvorak, backed as county GOP chairman two years ago by Illinois Gov. James R. Thompson, declared his innocence Wednesday and defied party leaders who called for his resignation after the U.S. attorney said Dvorak was the “subject” of an investigation.

And in an unusual twist, the alleged mobster publicly denied, through his attorney, ever paying bribes to Dvorak or anybody in the sheriff’s office.

The controversy is the first significant fallout from an unfolding long-term federal investigation into organized crime and its influence in Chicago and Cook County government and courts. The first indictments in the probe came last week when 20 alleged organized crime figures were charged with racketeering and conspiracy.

The recording has become a major issue in spring primary campaigns, dominating virtually every political gathering as well as news coverage of the campaigns in the last week.

“Candidates coming to the Cook County media market wanting to talk about the issues cannot avoid questions about this,” said former Cook County GOP Chairman Donald L. Totten.

The tape was played publicly at a bond hearing for Ernest Rocco Infelice, 67, who the government alleges controls gambling and loan sharking from downtown Chicago to across the Wisconsin border.

In a conversation with a government informant, Infelice boasted: “I lay out $35,000 a month for guys that are away (in prison) and the coppers. . . . Between you and I, 10 goes to the sheriff.”

Infelice said the money went to “the Bohemian” and in exchange the sheriff did not police crime syndicate vice operations in suburban Cook County. A federal agent identified Dvorak as “the Bohemian.”

In what may be a first for an alleged Chicago mobster, Infelice, through his lawyer, Patrick Tuite, told reporters on Wednesday that he “has not given any money to James Dvorak or anybody in the sheriff’s office. . . . It’s all a bunch of hot air.”

Also on Wednesday, the leading candidate for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in the March 20 primary, Illinois Secretary of State Jim Edgar, came to Chicago and publicly called for Dvorak to quit his party post.

“This investigation, the publicity surrounding it, would undermine his ability to lead the party in Cook County,” Edgar said.

Dvorak, a former Chicago policeman and former commander of the Police Department’s vice unit, was defiant. Late Wednesday the former Democrat-turned-Republican said: “In the court of public opinion, I stand indicted and my resignation would be viewed as an admission of guilt. I am not guilty. I will not resign. I do not intend to surrender to the injustice generated by a lying mobster.”