Thursday, June 28, 2012

by Lauren Williamson

A Darien man faces federal bribery charges in connection with his suspected role in a plot involving former Cook County officials, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Thursday.

Gerald W. Lombardi, 59, of Darien, was charged along with former Cook County Commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno, former Chicago Ald. Ambrosio Medrano and two other businessmen in a scheme to sell bandages to public hospitals.

Officials said Lombardi agreed to pay kickbacks to Moreno and Medrano if during their tenure in office they made Stroger Hospital buy bandages from Chasing Lions, a veterans-owned business in Lisle that Lombardi represented. His son, Jerry A. Lombardi, 33, of Downers Grove, and Stanley Wozniak, 49, of Chicago, were also involved in the scheme as agents for Chasing Lions.

The plot started in 2010 before Moreno left office, officials said. Moreno sponsored a September 2010 county ordinance benefitting veterans-owned businesses. Medrano told Moreno later that month that Wozniak and Gerald Lombardi wanted “to dangle a bigger piece of the pie in front of you,” according to FBI records.

After the FBI recorded a series of conversations, an undercover agent posed as a buyer for an out-of-state public hospital in 2011, officials said. Wozniak and the Lombardis agreed to pay a 20 percent kickback to the agent, as well as a fictitious county official, on four orders worth $100,000 each, according to the complaint.

“Public officials who solicit and obtain bribes, and private individuals who pay bribes, undermine trust in honest government,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said. “The defendants in these cases are alleged to have done just that.”

Moreno was charged in two additional bribery schemes, one of which also involved Medrano.