How does someone so popular, such a bright political star, fall so far so fast? Well, start with a room full of disgruntled employees.
It's no secret that Santos' was a revolving-door office. In her first two years there, nearly two dozen employees left or transferred. In her testimony, the treasurer's current chief fund manager, Patricia Errera, admitted freely that she despised Santos, calling her a "bitch," a "witch" and "her royal highness" around the office because, plainly, "That's how I saw her."
Errera was one in the seemingly endless parade of Santos employees who testified for the government - a much longer line of witnesses than that for the defense, which included Adlai Stevenson and U.S. District Judge Blanche Manning.
While Errera admitted on the stand to her own form of corruption - she receives free, personal business from a broker who has contracts with the treasurer's office - she served as a key witness in the case against Santos.
With a do-gooder's ire, she testified that she attended a meeting one day in which Santos' first deputy John Henry ordered her to stop doing business with firms that had not donated to Santos' campaign.
She had no doubt that the order had come from Santos, Errera said, and she quickly faxed a complaint to the city's Board of Ethics on June 11, 1998, reportedly jump-starting a somewhat meager but ongoing FBI investigation of Santos' fundraising practices.
Anonymous FBI sources told reporters that someone in the office of the seven-member board - which is appointed by Daley - then went to the FBI with Errera's complaint.
Although the ethics board is required to report potentially illegal misconduct, it's very rare that they do, and even then, it's usually only state infractions that are reported, according to one spokeswoman.
But just five days after the board received Errera's complaint, the FBI swooped in on her. She testified that she then began taking copious notes on Santos' every move and calculating how much the office was losing by not doing business with the allegedly banished firms.
In other words, she became the FBI's mole, a key city player in bringing down a boss she didn't like.
And while the press has jumped at the chance to kiss some government ass and champion Errera for standing up to an elected official, very few have braved the idea that she forms that palpable link between the city and the Feds.
Not to mention the fact that very first person to alert the Feds to Santos' fundraising practices - back in March 1998 - was a Citibank official who Errera admits she knew. She even testified that she vividly remembers having a conversation with him about Santos the very month his lawyers reported Santos to a U.S. attorney.
Now the theory is simple: Disgruntled employee calls city. City calls feds. Feds' investigation - based on one complaint - gets needed help. Conspiracy underway, and everybody wins - except Santos. Daley is conveniently rid of his nemesis and a potential challenger and the Feds save face after the high-profile jury acquittals of two other public officials.
But then, U.S. Attorney Scott Lassar also claims that his office is unfazed by the workings of the city.
So maybe it is just a theory. After all, he was appointed by President Clinton, not by Mayor Daley. Sounds apolitical enough, right?
"Hah!" snorts 28th ward Ald. Ed Smith, as if the question is so ridiculous it doesn't deserve an answer. He continues to laugh, so much that he has to take the phone away from his face. When he returns, all he can muster is a rhetorical, "Is it political? Is water wet?"
Of all the aldermen and state reps who attended the Humboldt Park rally, Smith was the only one brave enough to attend Santos' trial when it seemed everyone else was keeping a low profile.
Also a longtime Daley detractor, Smith is not afraid to blame what he calls a racially-biased U.S. Attorney's office - but will stop at claiming that Santos was set up by City Hall.
"I don't know anything about that kind of connection," he says.
And like Rep. Lopez and the Daley hecklers, Smith is quick to charge that the indictment and trial could have been delayed until after the February municipal election, as they were in the case of now-Gov. George Ryan, when allegations of the secretary of state's truck-license scandal surfaced just weeks before statewide elections.
And since when is a trial not political, Smith asks? Actually, it's just like a campaign, he says: The challenger (prosecutors) tries to convince an electorate (jury) that the incumbent (defendant) is not worthy to hold office.
In Lassar's case, he knew that with two recent acquittals of Hispanic aldermen despite their corruption charges, he had to win the campaign (trial) this time, Smith says. So Lassar played his trump and appointed the formidable Jerry Krulewitch, who successfully prosecuted former U.S. Rep. Mel Reynolds and three cops in the Gresham police district corruption case.
Over coffee a week after the Santos verdict, Krulewitch recalls one of his favorite moments in the trial, when his partner, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Garcia, likened Santos' testimony to a campaign, replete with spin doctors (character witnesses) and propaganda (her testimony).
But toward the trial's end, the prosecution did a little politicking of their own, raising questions about some business practices that were never mentioned in the original indictment, like whether Santos ended a lending program for low-income women for political reasons.
Krulewitch defends the move. But he concedes that he brought it up because the case was built on "discreet" information, centering on attempted extortion. He had to convince a jury that Santos' threats to the companies with city contracts were implied, not direct.
In the end, the jury agreed with Krulewitch on just one extortion count and five fraud counts. "My boss was not displeased," he says. (continued on page 12)
While Krulewitch's exacting courtroom presence surely sparked the conviction, a tape of Santos telling a firm to "belly up" with a political contribution also helped seal the deal (see sidebar). "In the past, I have been more than tolerant of nos and no-shows... But this is not a choice," she told the firm on the tape. She contends she wanted the firm employee to take her request up with management.
But after the jurors heard it more than a dozen times, they had no choice but to convict, juror Quinn said, although he said he and Taylor had a hard time stomaching a conviction based on someone's tone of voice.
After all, business is booming in Chicago, and anyone with a city contract knows the drill. You grease the politician's hand to get work. One contractor who did not wish to reveal her name - for fear of losing city business - describes it this way:
"You go to meet with them about some business they want you to do. The next day, there's a fax asking you to attend a fundraiser. You know you have to write that check. You just know it," she says, debating with her business partner over how much they should give.
So after Santos' conviction, everyone agrees that while fundraising from people with whom you do business is common practice, she pushed it too far. She wasn't savvy enough to just wink and nod, her critics say.
But during the 1995 election for city treasurer, she was accused of the same thing by her then-opponent, former Alderman Larry Bloom (who himself pleaded guilty last year to taking bribes). He said she raised funds from firms that did business with her office. But during her impassioned testimony, she said that then, as now, her own legal expertise tells her she's was acting within the limit of the law.
Even during her bid for attorney general, she says she consulted with other attorneys to assure that her fundraising was above board. One of them testified in her trial, and her lawyer later argued that consulting him was "not the behavior of an extortionist."
She might be hard to get along with, but naive she's not, her supporters contend. "She's tough as nails. She's going to seek vindication," said attorney Gair after the conviction. Instead of making a critical fundraising error, the conspiracy theory holds that she might merely have made the mistake of overachievement.
The first Hispanic to hold a city office, Santos rose to power the same time as Daley. The crux of his post-Harold Washington strategy was to embrace Hispanics and secure a new voting bloc. But they were expected to cede to him, not succeed him. Her error came in bucking power and for that, she got burned, her supporters say in hushed voices.
The only chink in the theory comes in Santos' silence. One has to wonder if she really is recuperating in private or trying to prove the theory herself, perhaps with a new army of attorneys. Either way, she isn't expected to speak publicly until her sentencing on July 27, when she faces up to thirty-three months in federal prison.
Until then, supporters and enemies alike will have to wonder if someone who at one time could have contended for mayor could be so careless, or if she was just another casualty of politics, Chicago style.
Back at the Humboldt Park rally, Santos' brother Rene assures everyone that she's doing fine. "She's going to make it through this," he says, as those gathered talk of protests, rallies and petition campaigns.
Smith says he's prepared to go "out on the firing line" for her, whatever her next step might be. Despite their friendship, he, like the rest of the city, awaits word from the sequestered Santos. All he can say is that her family is "hurting" and they need time with her to heal. Yet he doesn't hesitate to cryptically predict her return.
"I don't know how, and I don't know when, but she'll be back."
copyright 1999 New City Communications, Inc.