Todd Stroger: Crooked, Incompetent Politician & Former Child Star?

Todd Stroger's people knew. Did he?


BY MARK J. KONKOL


Cook County President Todd Stroger has said that he didn't know that Tony Cole -- the steakhouse busboy he hired to a patronage job -- lied about his criminal past on a job application until earlier this month when Cole was fired.


a top county official said Thursday that the Stroger administration received an FBI background report on Cole on Nov. 20, which included two criminal convictions he didn't disclose on his application.

That report showed up the same day Donna Dunnings, Stroger's cousin who was then the county's chief financial officer, first bailed Cole out of jail after he was arrested for violating an order of protection against an ex-girlfriend.


County human resources director Joe Sova said a "human error" in his office may have delayed Cole's firing for lying on his application. Someone in his office confused Cole's two convictions in Georgia with two similar charges he faced -- and disclosed on county documents -- in Louisiana. Once the error was discovered, the matter was referred to the county inspector general, Sova said. He didn't say when the error was discovered.


On Feb. 11, Sova said he received a complete Illinois State Police background check confirming Cole's undisclosed convictions. But Cole still wasn't fired. The inspector general's report was delivered to the administration April 2. But Cole wasn't fired until a week later, after the Chicago Sun-Times inquired about Cole's troubled past.


On Jan. 23, Dunnings bailed Cole out of jail a second time, and five days later, he was promoted to a $61,000 highway department job. Stroger fired Dunnings from her $175,000 post last week saying he expected Cole to make allegations against her.


Since then, Stroger has given different reasons for firing Dunnings. He said he was trying to spare her from being dragged "through he mud" by commissioners, and later he said the Cole controversy didn't have anything to do with his asking Dunnings to quit.


After Thurseday's special county board meeting to discuss the effect Dunnings departure would have on county finances, Commissioner Tim Schneider said Stroger owed taxpayers an explanation on the question he has dodged for a week now: "What are these allegations that led to the firing of Donna Dunnings?"


"What we tried to do is get together and get questions answered in Tony Cole and Donna Dunnings situation. . . . The outcome is we have more questions that became unanswered than we had when we came here this morning," Schneider said. "I thought this would give [Stroger] an opportunity to clear the air on some of the inconsistencies he's made."

Stroger refused to be interviewed after the meeting.