By David Heinzmann
It’s not been a quiet week here in Lake Woe… I mean Chicago.
Actually, a couple of weeks. If you like crime and political intrigue, where else could you possibly want to be than Chicago?
I’ll start at the end, at least for me, with the return of Illinois’ most imfamous pawnbroker, Scott Lee Cohen. On Saturday, I broke the story with Rick Pearson that Cohen is going to try to run for governor, amazing as that sounds. After reading the story, which includes the laundry list of almost all (didn’t quite have room in the paper for each one) false statement and embarrassing revelations that collectively imploded Cohen’s candidacy for lieutenant governor earlier this year, a friend of mine joked, “Other than that, it’s a great idea.”
Anytime a reporter can get a prostitute girlfriend, a massage parlor meeting, unpaid child support and an open statewide office in Illinois…. Well, that’s a pretty good story. But the problem is we’ve already been there with Mr. Cohen, so I’m not sure this attempt at running for governor is going to be that much fun. Maybe you don't get to publicly flame out twice in one year, even in this state.
While that sideshow was developing on Friday, the main event in the city was the federal takeover of state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias’ family business, Broadway Bank. Giannoulias is running for U.S. Senate, a campaign that’s bogged down in some seriously thick weeds thanks to the scandals surrounding Broadway. A mountain of red ink and bad loans—some of them to convicted felons who happened to be connected to the Outfit—caught up to the bank on Friday. Oh, look, more prostitutes. (One of the guys the bank gave loans had been convicted of helping run a nationwide call-girl ring.)
It was hard to keep the political corruption stories straight. The day before the feds finally took over Broadway Bank, there was of course the story of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich filing court papers attempting to compel President Obama to testify at Rod’s trial this summer. Details of what Rod was claiming about what Obama might know were supposed to be redacted in the filing. But thanks to the digital age, reporters soon discovered that when you cut and pasted the court document from a PDF to a Word document, all the redacted parts magically reappeared. Rod claims there’s evidence he had a conversation directly with the president-elect about filling Obama’s senate seat. Obama has been on the record maintaining he never talked to Rod about the seat. From the filing, it’s not clear the alleged evidence adds up to what Rod is claiming. Either way, will the leader of the free world have to provide some kind of testimony in a trial that may turn into a real three-ring circus this summer?
Let’s see, what else: three men bound and executed found in a car on the Southwest Side last week; the vicious wilding-robbery attack on two young women in Bucktown last week—both of them bludgeoned with a baseball bat over their frigging purses; lots of bodies washing up on the shore of Lake Michigan.
But the thing that stunned me, a little more than a week ago, was seeing that 17 people had been shot in Chicago in one night, with eight of them dying. In the years I covered the Chicago Police Department for the Tribune, when the murder rate was significantly higher than it has been the last couple years, that would have been a bad weekend. This was all in about 12 hours, on a week night.
When I was covering cops, I became familiar with the phenomenon of weather-change violence. Murders and shootings typically are down in Chicago during the winter because of the harsh cold. Much of the mayhem in this city is casual malevolence wrought by gang-bangers running into each other on the street, arguing about just about anything and then pushing it to the point that they know only one way to settle it—with a gun. So a lot of that kind of crime settles down during the long cold winter. But look out in spring. The first warm weekend—often in March or early April—will bring a little boomlet of shootings as people head back outside to enjoy the weather, only to be reminded of the simmering hostility they felt toward some rival over the long cold winter.
But 17 shootings in one night is not a boomlet. That’s a serious mess and indicates something else is going on. After a few years of lower, stable homicide numbers, murders in 2010 are now on pace to be about 20 percent higher than last year. And when you’re talking about the number of killings being in the 500 range, 20 percent is a serious and troubling increase.
So pay attention, crime fans, it’s going to be an interesting summer.
Showing posts with label Scott Lee Cohen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scott Lee Cohen. Show all posts
Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, February 08, 2010
The masseuse, her pawnbroker, his running mate and the people of Illinois
By David Heinzmann
I’ve been a reporter for 17 years and have covered various corners of crime and corruption in Chicago for most of that time. But it wasn’t until I recently started helping the Tribune cover Illinois politics that I had cause to take my notebook into a massage parlor looking for answers.
But that’s where I was last Thursday, in downtown Villa Park, at a furtively run establishment known to its faithful as the Eden Spa. It took some shoe leather to get there because the vague directions on their web site were out of date. I’d started out with the photos on the site’s gallery confirming the employment of the girl I was looking for: tall, tanned and blonde, dressed in white lingerie and stockings. But they don’t publish the exact address on the web site, so I had to call. The Eden had recently moved, it turned out.
A very, very friendly woman answered the phone and gave me precise directions that led me directly to an unassuming little one-story office complex in the western suburb. At the end of the row of storefront office suites stood one unmarked door, window curtains drawn, no signage. You’d never notice it.
I walked into a cozily lit reception area. Paneling. Candles flickering. A dish of peppermints. I took one and smiled at the nice lady while she gave some other caller the exact same directions she’d given me minutes before.
When she hung up and turned her attention to me, I asked, “Is Mandi available?”
Two days before, on election night I had been sitting at the city desk watching the election returns firm up in the various primary races. Election night in a newsroom is always an electric event, waiting for hours to see where the upsets will be, and then reacting, pounding out stories and making phone calls to get the winners and losers on the line for a quote while the night’s deadlines come hurtling at you.
It was a crowded field for lieutenant governor with six candidates in each party’s primary. Mostly little known state lawmakers were expected to vie for the chance to be the governor candidate’s running mate. But as the numbers shaped up Tuesday, it became clear that the Democratic winner was going to be a quirky candidate nobody had paid much attention to.
Scott Lee Cohen was a pawnbroker with no political organization, and nobody took him seriously. It seemed he couldn’t win. What nobody knew was that Cohen has access to a couple million bucks and had decided to spend all of it running for lieutenant governor, a job with little power or formal role in state government. But the thing is, even though it's not much of a job, the primary nominee gets locked into the gubernatorial ticket. So a controversial lieutenant governor -- or "lite gov" --candidate can sink a govenor's candidacy. (see 1986; Adlai Stevenson; Lyndon Larouche)
Oops.
So early Wednesday morning, I started to sift through what we knew about Cohen. He owned a pawn shop, and he’d told a Sun-Times columnist months before that he’d once been arrested for domestic battery in 2005. Cohen’s office then returned my call from the night before. The candidate had just won a stunning victory but he didn’t want to talk to me. He’s tired, and thinking about going on a vacation, his spokesman said. You understand.
No, I didn’t. In fact, I’d never heard of a politician winning a big upset victory at the polls and deciding he would make no public appearances, and instead go into seclusion for a few days. So I argued. Eventually, they relented and granted an interview with Cohen for that afternoon. In the meantime I ordered the domestic battery case file from the courthouse.
When we sat down in his West Loop campaign office, Cohen told me about his dreams of helping put Illinoisans back to work. Incentives for business, green energy, etc.
That domestic? Oh, his girlfriend was drunk and he never touched her. She calmed down and dropped the charges. It was a rough time in his life because he was going through a divorce. I had to admit I could see how a difficult divorce from your wife might put some serious stress on your relationship with your girlfriend.
I asked a lot of questions and Cohen talked and talked, and then I left. When I got back to the office, the domestic battery file had arrived. Well, it was a little different from what he’d told me. The girlfriend said he’d put a knife to her throat. The police took pictures of abrasions on her neck. They called an ambulance. Hmm.
Also, the file gave me the woman’s name for the first time. Amanda J. Eneman. I googled her, of course. And guess what came up:
The Eden Spa.
2005. Just a few months before the knife incident. A prostitution sting. Eneman charged. I ran to a computer in the newsroom that gives us access to Cook County court records and looked up the charges. She’d pleaded guilty to prostitution, servicing an undercover cop for $150. (The cop’s actions in that case are a story for another time.)
And so began the brief flaming saga of Scott Lee Cohen, which ended last night with his tear-drenched press conference in a North Side bar during half time of the Super Bowl while clutching his bawling children, and sputtering out that he was acquiescing to Mike Madigan’s demand that he get the hell out of the race before he dragged Gov. Pat Quinn’s candidacy to the bottom of Lake Michigan.
“Is Mandi available?” I had asked.
Not right then, came the answer. Mandi usually makes her appointments in advance. Did I have an appointment? Nope.
So the woman asked if I’d like a session with Gabby, or some other name I didn’t catch, or herself, actually. She was available.
“No, I need to see Mandi.”
Did I want to leave a number? I gave her my card. She read it and the smile finally went away. Later that night Amanda left a message on my desk phone, telling me she didn’t want to talk to me. Two days after that, she released a statement, through the high-profile California lawyer Gloria Allred, saying she didn’t think the Scott Lee Cohen she knew—the once she met while giving him a massage at the Eden Spa, the once she said held a knife to her throat--was fit to hold public office.
Sunday night Cohen said vehemently that Amanda’s opinion had nothing to do with his early retirement from Illinois politics.
I’ve been a reporter for 17 years and have covered various corners of crime and corruption in Chicago for most of that time. But it wasn’t until I recently started helping the Tribune cover Illinois politics that I had cause to take my notebook into a massage parlor looking for answers.
But that’s where I was last Thursday, in downtown Villa Park, at a furtively run establishment known to its faithful as the Eden Spa. It took some shoe leather to get there because the vague directions on their web site were out of date. I’d started out with the photos on the site’s gallery confirming the employment of the girl I was looking for: tall, tanned and blonde, dressed in white lingerie and stockings. But they don’t publish the exact address on the web site, so I had to call. The Eden had recently moved, it turned out.
A very, very friendly woman answered the phone and gave me precise directions that led me directly to an unassuming little one-story office complex in the western suburb. At the end of the row of storefront office suites stood one unmarked door, window curtains drawn, no signage. You’d never notice it.
I walked into a cozily lit reception area. Paneling. Candles flickering. A dish of peppermints. I took one and smiled at the nice lady while she gave some other caller the exact same directions she’d given me minutes before.
When she hung up and turned her attention to me, I asked, “Is Mandi available?”
Two days before, on election night I had been sitting at the city desk watching the election returns firm up in the various primary races. Election night in a newsroom is always an electric event, waiting for hours to see where the upsets will be, and then reacting, pounding out stories and making phone calls to get the winners and losers on the line for a quote while the night’s deadlines come hurtling at you.
It was a crowded field for lieutenant governor with six candidates in each party’s primary. Mostly little known state lawmakers were expected to vie for the chance to be the governor candidate’s running mate. But as the numbers shaped up Tuesday, it became clear that the Democratic winner was going to be a quirky candidate nobody had paid much attention to.
Scott Lee Cohen was a pawnbroker with no political organization, and nobody took him seriously. It seemed he couldn’t win. What nobody knew was that Cohen has access to a couple million bucks and had decided to spend all of it running for lieutenant governor, a job with little power or formal role in state government. But the thing is, even though it's not much of a job, the primary nominee gets locked into the gubernatorial ticket. So a controversial lieutenant governor -- or "lite gov" --candidate can sink a govenor's candidacy. (see 1986; Adlai Stevenson; Lyndon Larouche)
Oops.
So early Wednesday morning, I started to sift through what we knew about Cohen. He owned a pawn shop, and he’d told a Sun-Times columnist months before that he’d once been arrested for domestic battery in 2005. Cohen’s office then returned my call from the night before. The candidate had just won a stunning victory but he didn’t want to talk to me. He’s tired, and thinking about going on a vacation, his spokesman said. You understand.
No, I didn’t. In fact, I’d never heard of a politician winning a big upset victory at the polls and deciding he would make no public appearances, and instead go into seclusion for a few days. So I argued. Eventually, they relented and granted an interview with Cohen for that afternoon. In the meantime I ordered the domestic battery case file from the courthouse.
When we sat down in his West Loop campaign office, Cohen told me about his dreams of helping put Illinoisans back to work. Incentives for business, green energy, etc.
That domestic? Oh, his girlfriend was drunk and he never touched her. She calmed down and dropped the charges. It was a rough time in his life because he was going through a divorce. I had to admit I could see how a difficult divorce from your wife might put some serious stress on your relationship with your girlfriend.
I asked a lot of questions and Cohen talked and talked, and then I left. When I got back to the office, the domestic battery file had arrived. Well, it was a little different from what he’d told me. The girlfriend said he’d put a knife to her throat. The police took pictures of abrasions on her neck. They called an ambulance. Hmm.
Also, the file gave me the woman’s name for the first time. Amanda J. Eneman. I googled her, of course. And guess what came up:
The Eden Spa.
2005. Just a few months before the knife incident. A prostitution sting. Eneman charged. I ran to a computer in the newsroom that gives us access to Cook County court records and looked up the charges. She’d pleaded guilty to prostitution, servicing an undercover cop for $150. (The cop’s actions in that case are a story for another time.)
And so began the brief flaming saga of Scott Lee Cohen, which ended last night with his tear-drenched press conference in a North Side bar during half time of the Super Bowl while clutching his bawling children, and sputtering out that he was acquiescing to Mike Madigan’s demand that he get the hell out of the race before he dragged Gov. Pat Quinn’s candidacy to the bottom of Lake Michigan.
“Is Mandi available?” I had asked.
Not right then, came the answer. Mandi usually makes her appointments in advance. Did I have an appointment? Nope.
So the woman asked if I’d like a session with Gabby, or some other name I didn’t catch, or herself, actually. She was available.
“No, I need to see Mandi.”
Did I want to leave a number? I gave her my card. She read it and the smile finally went away. Later that night Amanda left a message on my desk phone, telling me she didn’t want to talk to me. Two days after that, she released a statement, through the high-profile California lawyer Gloria Allred, saying she didn’t think the Scott Lee Cohen she knew—the once she met while giving him a massage at the Eden Spa, the once she said held a knife to her throat--was fit to hold public office.
Sunday night Cohen said vehemently that Amanda’s opinion had nothing to do with his early retirement from Illinois politics.
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