Chicago Treasurer Resigns in Plea Agreement

The city treasurer agreed to step down and pleaded guilty Friday to federal corruption charges to avoid a retrial and possibly more prison time.

Miriam Santos pleaded guilty to mail fraud in her unsuccessful 1998 race for state attorney general for forcing her office workers to do campaign work on city time.

Santos, 44, faced a Nov. 13 retrial on mail fraud and attempted extortion charges, but the second charge was dropped under the plea deal. She was convicted of the charges last year and served four months of a 40-month sentence before a federal appeals court overturned the conviction.

Santos then got her $118,500-a-year job back and more than $100,000 in back pay.

“This concludes my career as a public figure,” Santos said after pleading guilty Friday. “I am peaceful as I walk away.”

As part of the plea bargain, prosecutors agreed to a prison sentence of time served. She also must pay $20,000 in restitution to the city and a $1,000 fine to the federal government.

Santos, who grew up in Gary, Ind., was an obscure attorney when Mayor Richard M. Daley backed her for city treasurer. She won the job in 1991, becoming the first Latino elected to citywide office. She soon got into a feud with the mayor concerning city pension funds but was popular enough to hold her office without his support.

In 1998, Santos became the Democratic nominee for attorney general. But soon there were whispers that she was under investigation for campaign misconduct.

Citibank, which invests millions of dollars in city funds, told the FBI that Santos had threatened to cut off its business unless it gave money to the Democratic Party.

One of her office workers, Patti Herrera, said Santos was forcing her and others to do campaign work on city time.

At her trial, prosecutors played tapes in which Santos was heard telling an employee of another city contractor that it was “time to belly up” and contribute money. At the trial, Santos blamed her rough tone on a thyroid problem.

On Friday, a defiant Santos told reporters that male politicians would not have gotten into trouble for what she did. “I am probably the first woman who had to go to jail for PMS-ing,” she said as the room exploded into laughter.

But the atmosphere at City Hall was strained; Santos recently told reporters that Daley wasn’t speaking to her.

In a statement Friday, Daley called Santos “a good public servant who has worked hard to serve her constituents well.”