John H. McCollom, an unassigned Cook County circuit judgeawaiting trial on bribery charges, yesterday avoided jail by turningover personal bank records to federal prosecutors.
The government sought the records to prove that McCollom spentmore than he received from known sources of income and that the moneycould only have been coming from bribes.
The submissions came just hours after U.S. Supreme Court JusticeJohn Paul Stevens refused to halt lower court orders directingsubmission of the documents.
McCollom, who is to go on trial April 20 for allegedly takingbribes to fix drunken-driving cases, and his attorney Gary Starkmanhanded the materials to assistant U.S. Attorneys Sheldon Zenner andLawrence Rosenthal during a hearing before U.S. District Judge JamesB. Moran.
On Feb. 17, Moran had found McCollom, 63, in contempt forrefusing to submit the bank records, which were needed becausemicrofilm copies obtained from the financial institutions wereillegible.
Moran ordered McCollom jailed, but stayed the sentence to allowMcCollom to appeal on the ground that the government was violatinghis Fifth Amendment protection against intrusion into private,personal documents.
Last week, after the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheldMoran, Starkman filed a motion seeking another stay. That was deniedyesterday.
More than a dozen attorneys and police officers are scheduled totestify against McCollom about alleged payoffs he took to fix caseswhile assigned to Traffic Court in the 1970s and early 1980s.
No comments:
Post a Comment