Editorial: Is a prosecution in the future?

News-Democrat, Belleville, IL

Published Wednesday, May 21, 2008

A sweetheart hotel loan was in the news this week -- no, not the loan Illinois made to the politically connected former owners of the Collinsville Holiday Inn, but the one to the politically connected former owners of what's now the President Abraham Lincoln Hotel in Springfield.

The tales of these two hotels are practically interchangeable.

State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias this week gave federal and state prosecutors an audit that suggests the Springfield hotel owners diverted about $2 million to avoid repaying the state loan. A year ago Giannoulias gave federal prosecutors evidence involving similar things in Collinsville -- "questionable accounting practices, ghost payrolling, inflated salaries and egregious freeloading" Giannoulias' spokesman said at the time.

Actually, the Collinsville findings were the more egregious. "The information that was uncovered in Collinsville ... suggests the possibility that federal crimes were committed, specifically financial crimes involving potential tax and mail fraud," the spokesman said last May.

So why hasn't the U.S. Attorney Courtney Cox's office pursued the Collinsville case? Maybe prosecutors are still sifting through the records and will yet file charges. But all too often, the Southern District has been a black hole in which evidence of possible criminal activity goes in, and that's the last the public ever hears of it.

Prosecutors need to hold the former owners of both these hotels accountable.

  
     
 
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