The federal criminal complaint against the seven people arrested in Chicago last week for federal bribery conspiracy is 42 pages long. Former state Senator Rickey Hendon is mentioned 21 times in those 42 pages, although never by name.
It's pretty clear from the complaint that the U.S. attorney has been looking at Hendon (D-Chicago) for at least the past four years.
In July 2008, the Chicago Tribune published a major exposé on state grants steered to local groups by Hendon. The Tribune claimed that half of the 48 grant recipients "were running dubious programs, or declined to show how they spent the money."
Conveniently, that very same month, the feds busted a Chicago police officer during a probe of gun-trafficking and public corruption. The cop quickly offered to cooperate to reduce his sentence. It doesn't take too much reading between the lines to see that the corrupt cop might have been given the task of helping the feds nab Rickey Hendon.
One of the police officer's longtime friends was Dean Nichols. Nichols and Hendon are close friends.
