Cheering for Fitzgerald!!!

Fitzgerald Has Reputation for Pursuing the Man at the Top
By Shawn McCarthy
The Globe and Mail, Canada
Saturday 20 August 2005
Attorney alluded to 'chairman's' role in the payment plan.


Chicago - U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has prosecuted mobsters, terrorists and even journalists. He has investigated and charged state and city officials in this notoriously crooked state with pit bull tenacity.

And always, he has methodically, inexorably pursued his investigations to target the man at the top of the organizational pyramid.

On Thursday, Mr. Fitzgerald announced that a U.S. grand jury laid fraud charges against David Radler, who is a long-time business partner of Conrad Black and former publisher of Hollinger International Inc.'s Chicago Sun-Times, and against Mark Kipnis, Hollinger International's top corporate counsel.

At a news conference, the Justice Department lawyer several times alluded to the "chairman's" role in the allegedly fraudulent payments made to Hollinger executives -- though he didn't name Lord Black. Also charged was Ravelston Corp., the holding company that is controlled by Lord Black and through which he controlled Hollinger.

Mr. Radler has agreed to plead guilty and co-operate with the continuing investigation, leading to speculation that Lord Black may be in Mr. Fitzgerald's sites. Clearly, it would be an uncomfortable position to be in.

The 6-foot, 2-inch, 215-pound former rugby player is considered one of the most aggressive and uncompromising prosecutors in the country.

Mr. Fitzgerald is slavishly devoted to his work. At 45, the Harvard law school alumnus remains unmarried and is known for sending e-mails to co-workers in the wee hours of the morning.

A Brooklyn-raised son of Irish immigrants, whose father worked as a doorman in Manhattan's tony Upper East Side, he has evinced no political ambition. That's a sharp contrast to such former high-profile federal attorneys as Chicago's James Thompson, who became Illinois governor, or New York's Rudolph Giuliani, who went on to become a most celebrated mayor.

Before coming to Chicago, Mr. Fitzgerald was an assistant federal prosecutor in New York City. There, he indicted Osama bin Laden in 1998 for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa, and won convictions against defendants in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, including Sheikh Omar Abdal Rahman.

He also put Mafia boss John Gambino behind bars.

He won the high-profile job in Chicago when Illinois' maverick senator, Peter Fitzgerald, (no relation) recommended him to the White House as someone who would be "untouchable" -- a modern-day Elliot Ness -- by the political power brokers in the state.

While he quickly made an impression locally, Mr. Fitzgerald gained national notoriety as the special prosecutor assigned to investigate the leak in 2003 that revealed the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

To the outrage of newspaper editorialists across the country, he prosecuted reporters Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper, of Time magazine, for refusing to testify in the investigation. While Mr. Cooper eventually did co-operate, Ms. Miller went to jail and remains behind bars.

His investigation is continuing and senior White House staffers, including top presidential adviser Karl Rove, have been implicated in the leak, which may have contravened federal law that prohibits the identification of a CIA agent.

People who have watched Mr. Fitzgerald operate in Chicago, and before that as assistant U.S. Attorney in New York City, are not surprised by his zeal in pursuing the journalists. But don't expect him to stop there.

That's how he operates: Apply maximum pressure to reluctant witnesses in order to build an air-tight case against the most senior member of a criminal conspiracy.

As a federal prosecutor in Chicago, Mr. Fitzgerald is working in a "target rich environment," to borrow a phrase from the U.S. military.

After a series of guilty pleas and successful convictions of lower officials, he has charged former Republican governor George Ryan in a "pay for play" scandal involving state contracts. Mr. Ryan's trial is scheduled to start this fall.

He has also gutted the Democratic machinery of Mayor John Daley at Chicago's City Hall, with a series of charges against Mr. Daley's top advisers and departmental commissioners.

Cindy Canary, executive director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said Mr. Fitzgerald has "stepped up the pace of prosecutions tremendously" since taking the job in September, 2001.

"You get the sense that there are absolutely no sacred cows with him. He aims straight for the top."
Wrap....