Report: Chicago, Los Angeles among most corrupt

CHICAGO | No place in the nation has been more mired in public corruption than Chicago, one main reason Illinois is the third most corrupt state when considering the sheer number of corruption convictions, according to a report released Wednesday.

Federal data shows the 1,531 convictions for public corruption from 1976 through 2010 in the Northern District of Illinois, the federal court district dominated by Chicago, were the most of any of the country's districts during that time. The data has been collected in a new report from researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Illinois' Institute of Government and Public Affairs.

In second was the Central District of California, where Los Angeles is located, with 1,275 convictions during the same 34-year period. The Southern District of New York, which includes Manhattan, was third with 1,202 convictions.

"For a long time ... Chicago and Illinois have been known for high levels of public corruption," said report co-author Dick Simpson. "But now we have the statistics that confirm their dishonorable and notorious reputations."

In numbers of public corruption convictions by state from 1976 to 2010, New York state led with 2,522; California was second with 2,345, and Illinois was third, with 1,828. No state had more per capita corruption convictions than Louisiana, which was trailed by Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania.

Figures for the report were drawn from Justice Department data on convictions in the nation's 94 federal judicial districts. The report doesn't specify types of corruption, whether convictions were for fraud, bribery or other crimes. The public corruption category also can include convictions of U.S. postal workers for stealing mail, the report's authors said.

When it comes to corruption, no state has made headlines quite like Illinois in recent years.

Just last year, impeached Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, was convicted of corruption counts that included trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama. He is set to report to prison to begin serving a 14-year prison term on March 15.

Blagojevich's predecessor, Republican George Ryan, also was convicted for corruption and still is serving a 6½-year prison term. Wednesday's report also notes that 31 members of Chicago's City Council have been convicted of a host of crimes since 1973.

"The two worst crime zones in Illinois are the governor's mansion ... and the City Council chambers in Chicago," said Simpson, himself a former Chicago alderman. "No other state can match us."

Another author of the report, James Nowlan, said some of the data singling out Chicago can be a little misleading because at least some cases of corruption committed elsewhere in the state are tried in Chicago.

He pointed to Springfield Republican William Cellini, a millionaire businessman convicted last year of conspiring to squeeze a contribution to Blagojevich's campaign from a Hollywood producer. He went on trial in Chicago.

Among the recommendations made in the report are for Chicago to extend ethics rules to cover alderman and for Illinois to pass legislation that would allow voters to adopt ethics reforms by referendum.

Illinois residents may well want to weigh in on the issue, Nowlan said, given that their state "has become a bit of a laughing stock on Saturday night and evening television shows" over its reputation for corruption.

The report's authors were planning to present their findings a city ethics reform panel Wednesday.

Associated Press writer Shannon McFarland in Springfield contributed to this report.