Pabey friends, foes weigh in on news of indictment

Those close, and not so close, to East Chicago Mayor George Pabey expressed a range of reactions Wednesday to news of his federal indictment.

The allegations against Pabey, if true, "will discredit the entire Democratic Party and Northwest Indiana," Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said. "So I hope they're not true."

Pabey and Jose Angel Camacho, a city engineering department supervisor, were charged in Hammond federal court with conspiring to use city property and services to renovate a home Pabey bought in Gary's Miller Beach neighborhood.

McDermott said he was shocked at the indictment, though rumors of it had swirled in political circles for more than a year.

The rumors had been so persistent and had gone on for so long, "I figured it couldn't be true," he said.

McDermott said he'll try to absorb the shock before deciding the fate of the chairmanship of the East Chicago precinct organization, currently held by Pabey.

As city chairman, Pabey serves at the pleasure of the Lake County Democratic organization chairman, who is McDermott.

"I have to protect the party," McDermott said. "If this is going to be harmful to the party, I'll have to deal with that."

Gary Mayor Rudy Clay said his opinion of Pabey is biased because the two men are friends.

"I believe he's innocent," Clay said. He later added, "I don't like to see anybody indicted, especially an elected official."

Joel Markovich, who spent 14 months in prison for fraudulently billing the city of East Chicago in 1999 and 2000 for concrete, building repair and landscape work by his former company, JGM Enterprises, had little to say about Pabey's indictment.

"My prayers are with him and his family," Markovich said.

For Alicia Lopez-Rodriguez, a one-time ardent Pabey supporter, later turned political opponent, news of the indictment was bittersweet, she said.

"I was a supporter; I was his right hand all through his campaign" in 2004, when Pabey first won the mayor's office, Lopez-Rodriguez said.

"After he'd been (in office) for a while, I saw the change, and I didn't like it," said Lopez-Rodriguez, whose 2007 attempt to defeat Pabey ended in his re-election.

"It's just really disheartening," Lopez-Rodriguez said. "East Chicago has always had such a bad reputation for corruption. We thought George was going to change that, and he didn't change it."

Lopez-Rodriguez said she's been in talks Wednesday with others about the future of the mayor's office in East Chicago.

"We're going to decide as a group what the next step will be," she said.

The next mayor will be somebody who is accountable to the people of the city, Lopez-Rodriguez said.

"The Republic of East Chicago needs to be dismantled."