It is always fascinating when indictments and plea bargains begin to shake out of an extended ongoing investigation, such as the federal investigation into the S & H towing scandal and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.
Last Thursday, Sept. 16, the United States Attorney’s Office announced that William Bialczak and Kenneth Bialczak had pled guilty to under-reporting gross receipts for their businesses S & H Parking Systems, Metropolitan Towing and Parks Auto Sales by approximately $1 million between 2005 and 2006.
William Bialczak, the big brother at age 62, and Kenneth Bialczak, little brother at age 49, each pleaded guilty to two felony counts of tax evasion. Each count carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and/or fines up to $100,000, and mandatory restitution. Sentencing for both has been set for December 3.
These brothers were skimming off of the top of their parking lots and tow garage during the salad days of Police Chief Joseph Mokwa, when the Bialczak brothers had a towing contract with the city police that previously had been serviced internally by the Streets Department (as it is once again under Police Chief Daniel Isom).
Their general manager at S & H was a former city cop named Greg Shepard. Shepard was indicted more than a year ago (on June 25, 2009) on multiple charges including mail fraud, wire fraud and bribery, all related to his work on the police department towing contract. The indictment alleged various dirty tricks played on vehicle owners whose cars had been seized by the city cops to sell their vehicles fraudlently.
Ob Friday, right on the heels of the Bialczak brothers’ pleas, Shepard, 54, pleaded guilty to one felony count of mail fraud and one felony count of bribery involving federal programs. Mail fraud carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and/or fines up to $250,000; bribery carries a maximum penalty of ten years prison and/or fines up to $250,000. Sentencing has been set for December 10.
To see the Bialczak brothers plea out for the skim while Shepard took the fall in the fraud case shows that the feds were not able to connect the owners of S & H to the scam. Shepard could have been a rogue scam; or if there was a scam and the owners were in on it, it may have been carefully compartmentalized or kept off the books and out of the computers that the feds seized and have been poring over for two years.
Last August, the investigation netted a very small fish in Kevin Shade, a former copper who pleaded guilty to lying on inspection reports for S & H. But the big fish everyone has been waiting to hear about is Mokwa himself, who resigned from the department way back on July 25, 2008. His severance deal included putting the taxpayer on the hook for all of his legal expenses connected to the towing scandal, but Mokwa has not been charged with any crime.
For the entire span covered by Shepard’s indictment, Mokwa was chief of police. Mokwa testified in the March 2009 police board trial of Officer Scott Tillis that he had known Shepard for 30 years. Mokwa also testified that as police chief he at times called Shepard personally regarding towed vehicles. Mokwa also testified that he – and members of his senior command – visited with Shepard at the tow lot on a regular basis for “coffee.”
Tillis testified that he was suspended without pay on a bogus charge when he initiated an investigation into activities at the S & H tow yard after a large number of his neighbors’ vehicles were towed on the same night under suspicious circumstances.
Tillis testified that Shepard personally denied him entrance to the tow yard, saying, “I’m with Joe,” meaning Mokwa. Tillis testified that Internal Affairs and his own district command were reluctant to investigate Shepard or the tow yard when he presented them with evidence that something was going on at S & H.
Throughout Mokwa’s tenure as police chief, Francis G. Slay was mayor and the only elected official on the St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners, which administers the police department and governs the police chief. Slay and the police board chaired by developer Chris Goodson stood by Mokwa until the bitter end, even apparently attempting to absolve the chief of blame by clearing him in an independent investigation prepared by a local law firm before Mokwa resigned.
Those who engage in the fantasy football variant of federal court watching have fantasized for two years about a rollout of the S & H takedown that would implicate a long, hot trail of police department whiteshirts, political figures and their family and friends who (it is imagined) all got a car out of the deal or winked the other way at a bag of money.
These fantasy gamers should be disappointed to see the Bialczak brothers implicated in nothing more than a skim operation and Shepard take the fall for the scam without a whisper of Mokwa’s involvement. If the trail is not necessarily going cold, it certainly isn’t getting any hotter.
Tea city
St. Louis is vying for an opportunity to host the Tea Party National Convention! Or so it would seem if you read the campaign site of Mayor Slay, a nominal Democrat.
On Friday, Slay’s communications operative Richard Callow posted and broadcast his latest poll on the mayor’s campaign site. The poll asks a bunch of light, breezy questions about the tea party movement and certainly reads as if written by a friend of that movement.
“These supporters are generally conservative, and identify themselves as Republicans or independents,” Callow notes of the tea baggers. Race is not mentioned anywhere. Nowhere would you guess that this is an Astroturf movement of almost entirely white people who have a well established, highly public pattern of decrying and insulting President Barack Obama.
One wonders what representatives of the Democratic National Committee would think if they read this breezy pablum about the angry white right on the campaign site of the mayor of a city vying to host the DNC national convention?
This much is clear: Slay and his operatives have shown consistent interest in appearing hospitable to the angry white right.
Corrigan the wonk
Bill Corrigan, Republican candidate for county executive, made a poor show at attempting a campaign diversity effort. With the Democratic incumbent, Charlie Dooley, being African-American, Corrigan is wise to make gestures at diversity, though he appears to be in desperate need for some good advice on how to do that. If his motive is to disrupt Dooley’s base in the black community, though, he may not need to be that effective to succeed. It is questionable to what extent Dooley can claim that base as his during this election cycle.
Corrigan’s campaign is gearing much more energetically and effectively toward civic-minded voters. He is anything but a tea bagger carrying on about change for change’s sake or spouting free market capitalism tinged with alienated white racism. Corrigan is an unapologetic idea guy – a wonk.
On Friday he rolled out his 10-point plan to revitalize a depressed St. Louis County economy. It has some hot air, such as “Promote and Focus on St. Louis’ Strengths,” but is for the most detailed and sound, with a focus on attracting venture capital and stimulating entrepreneurship. Of course, it is much easier to make a list of 10 items, with seven or eight of them smart, than it is to make even one of them happen, especially wielding the uneven and limited power of county executive. But Corrigan seems to be one of the more thoughtful Republican candidates on the scene at any level in this election cycle.
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