CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Opening statements are set to begin Tuesday morning in the federal tax trial of Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson, followed by testimony from potentially several witnesses.
A jury of four men and eight women was chosen Monday to hear Thompson’s case. He was charged in April 2021 with filing false federal income tax returns for the years 2013 through 2017. He is also charged with lying to federal regulators in early 2018 about the amount of money he owed the now-shuttered Washington Federal Bank for Savings in Bridgeport.
Among those who could be called to testify Tuesday is Alicia Mandujano, a longtime Washington Federal employee who pleaded guilty last month in connection with the massive fraud the feds say they uncovered at the bank.
Other potential witnesses include Thompson accountant Robert Hannigan of Bansley & Kiener and other current and former members of that firm.
Mandujano’s plea agreement alleged the bank’s president, John F. Gembara, for years directed her to alter the bank’s books to falsely make it look like Thompson made payments on a loan there.
Hannigan gave surprise testimony at a hearing last month about a note he said he found. It indicated he first discussed with Thompson amending the tax returns at issue in the trial after federal agents showed up on Thompson’s doorstep in December 2018.
Gembara was found dead in December 2017 in the $1 million Park Ridge home of his bank customer and friend, Marek Matczuk. The bank was shut down by federal regulators the same month. That’s when investigators began to unravel the fraud there that allegedly resulted in the disappearance of nearly $90 million.
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The investigation has so far led to criminal charges against 15 people, including Thompson, Mandujano and Matczuk.
Thompson’s indictment said he received three payments totaling $219,000 from the bank between 2011 and 2014 through a purported loan and other unsecured payments. The feds said he made only one payment on the loan but failed to pay any interest. Then, after the bank was shut down, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. tried to collect the money from Thompson, and he allegedly lied about how much he owed.
Defense attorney Chris Gair, a former federal prosecutor, has said that Thompson didn’t pay interest on the Washington Federal loan because he expected to refinance the debt with the mortgages on his home and rental property and repeatedly tried to get Gembara to approve it.
The bank gave Thompson $110,000 in November 2011, $20,000 in March 2013 and $89,000 in January 2014. But Gair said Thompson had “simply forgotten” about the second and third payments when he told regulators in February and March 2018 he only owed $110,000.
Gair said Thompson also didn’t realize his accountants had used interest forms wrongly sent to him by Washington Federal to claim a mortgage-interest deduction on his income tax returns year after year. Gair has even gone so far as to write that, “Mr. Thompson’s lack of organization and lack of attention to the details of his personal financial affairs are central to his defense.”
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire & Chicago Sun-Times 2022. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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