By Dan Proft - Don Wade & Roma Morning Show - WLS 890-AM

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Click here to listen to an .mp3 of this commentary as heard on today morning's Don Wade & Roma Morning Show on WLS AM-890.

We're doing it again.

In the 1950's, Chicago's chief export was Outfit influence. Our main trading partner was Las Vegas. With Teamsters pension funds nurturing the relationship, the Vegas Strip was born.

It would be several generations before the dual forces of corporate ownership of gaming and federal law enforcement would upset the cozy arrangement between the Chicago wiseguys and their Vegas connections.

That run of success encouraged other enterprising Chicago syndicates to author their own trade agreements.

As Vegas built-up, it was no longer just the casinos throwing off money. The local government needed its cut to finance the infrastructure required to handle Clark County's population explosion.

The mobsters faded and the politicos ascended.

Cagey "I know a guy" pioneers from our local Democrat Machine saw an opportunity to drive west and ply what they had learned at the feet of the Five Families of Chicago politics.

And that brings us to Orlando Jones, found dead on a beach in Michigan last week.

Jones, the godson and longtime chief of staff to former Cook County Board President John Stroger, committed suicide less then a week after media reports surfaced that he was likely to be indicted by Las Vegas authorities.

The forthcoming prosecution is complicated but it essentially boils down to no-work contracts and kickback schemes related to the management of the county hospital in Las Vegas.

And three Chicagoans are at the center of it--Jones; Lacy Thomas, former chief of the Cook County Hospital under John Stroger who left to take the same position at the county hospital in Las Vegas; and Martello Pollock, head of Crystal Communications, a firm with a long and dubious record of obtaining contracts with Cook County government.

As this John le Carré novel come to life unfolds, I am intrigued to find out how closely the politicos followed the Outfit template.

Back in the day, Outfit bosses sent underlings to collect the skim.

My question is whether Chicago political bosses--the guys with the titles in front of their names--were doing the same?

My hope is that Lacy Thomas and Martello Pollock live to tell us all about it.

UPDATE: 2/24/08 Click here to download the indictment of Lacy Thomas

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