Will County Ready To End Tezak Saga December 08, 1992|By Bob Merrifield. Democrats chortled when former Will County Coroner Robert Tezak, once the most powerful figure in the county GOP, was indicted last week on arson charges stemming from a five-year-old fire widely regarded as a crime aimed at saving the skins of some of his colleagues. At the same time, Republicans issued what seemed to be a sigh of relief. ``Maybe this won`t be hanging over our heads anymore,`` said County Republican Party Chairman Gerald Kinney. ``I hope now we can get on with the business of politics and government.`` The long-awaited indictment finally came in connection with the Dec. 4, 1987, torching of a Tezak-owned building that housed subpoenaed records of the Will County Private Industry Council, a federally funded jobs training agency. It came two months after Tezak was indicted for arson in another blaze that damaged a bowling alley he owned in Crest Hill. That blaze was part of an insurance scheme, the indictment said, but it also served as a warning in political circles that arson and probably the PIC fire were on the minds of federal investigators. The PIC fire was regarded as an act of defiance against an Internal Revenue Service investigation and clung like soot to the Will County GOP. Its residue has lasted long enough to earn it recognition in part for stunning setbacks suffered by Republicans at the polls as recently as November. Long after the flames died, the resulting ashes continued to drift over the Will County political landscape, even though nearly all of the names associated with the Republican Party on that cold December night have since faded from the scene. While only the IRS knows for sure what it was after when it gave the Will County Private Industry Council three days to turn over virtually all of its records, law enforcement authorities say the fire accomplished little in the way of a political cover-up. ``If anybody thought they could take heart from that fire, they shouldn`t,`` said one law enforcement official. ``All of those records have been reconstructed from other sources.`` But the PIC fire has endured as a symbol of political evil in Will County. The building`s ownership was hidden in a land trust, but word slowly filtered out that Tezak was its owner. Will County Sheriff Thomas Fitzgerald, whose department is credited with channeling to federal authorities a tip that led to the indictment, said the PIC fire was seen as a slap in the face for law enforcement. ``People believed that the political establishment was in on it and that nothing would be done,`` said Fitzgerald, who was a Joliet police captain in 1987. ``That`s why we went to (federal investigators) about it.`` A millionaire businessman generous with political contributions, Tezak had party influence that was enormous in the early 1980’s. At one time, Tezak was even mentioned, according to him, as a possible GOP candidate for lieutenant governor. Associates say he was able to pick up the phone and dial directly into the office of then-Gov. James Thompson-the kind of reputation that goes a long way toward influence in politics, whether true or not. Long considered a swing district, Will County in the 1980’s was home to a growing number of suburban Republicans as well as Reagan Democrats, giving it new importance in statewide elections. But as Tezak`s influence grew, so did his political baggage. His flamboyant lifestyle and brutal political tactics, not to mention resentment over his business successes (he parlayed the card game Uno into a fortune), didn`t always play well in a county where politics still has a folksy flavor. It was the last straw when he bought Joliet`s only radio station. Republicans began to distance themselves from him in public while continuing to accept his help and instructions in private. Two days after the PIC fire, Tezak announced he would not seek a fourth term as coroner and soon left Will County to pursue a new-found interest in auto racing. Publicly, he said he wanted to devote more time to his family. His departure was the first among the three men who dominated the county Republican Party at the time. The other two were then U.S. Rep. Jack Davis and County Board Chairman John Annerino. Davis, a former County Board chairman from New Lenox, faded from the scene after losing a bid for a second term four years ago, leaving only Annerino to serve as the lightning rod for old allegations of political chicanery. Just when the public memory had started to fade, Annerino opened still-fresh political wounds by installing himself as head of the Private Industry Council. The appointment was seen as proof of Democratic allegations that the federally financed jobs training agency was truly the evil empire and a cash farm for Republicans. Annerino stumbled and fell this year when he failed to win the GOP primary for county executive, and last month was stripped of his PIC post-a loss seen by many as the end of his political career. So long as the Tezak indictment is not followed by charges against current Republican figures, it could have a cleansing effect on the party, according to Kinney. ``These things have been out there for a long time, and they were what caused people in positions of leadership now to express dissatisfaction with the party in 1985 and 1986,`` Kinney said. ``They worked through the system to change the party the way you are supposed to and were successful. It would be a shame if they are the ones penalized for what happened then.``
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 23:02:06 +0000
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