Sometime around the summer of 1973

Sometime around the summer of 1973  (Labor Day Weekend)  an elevator operator working for the Chicago Tribune was driving home with his family along Indianapolis Blvd.    As Tom O'Leary was a smoker he noted that Cigarettes in Indiana were substantially cheaper than Illinois.    Thus, he stopped and made a purchase.    When he crossed into Illinois Investigators K and K put on their red lights, stopped the car, confiscated it and the contents and left the Family stranded far from their home in Elmhurst, Illinois.    On the same day a bunch of other Illinois citizens had similar fates.

On the day after Labor day I received a call from a Columnist at the Tribune asking me if I would represent Tom.    Of course I said yes.    I met with Tom that morning, called my opponent at the Attorney General's office, and by the Afternoon I filed a Civil Rights lawsuit in the United States Federal Court and an Injunction suit in the Circuit Court seeking to enjoin the enforcement of the Cigarette Use Tax action.     The Illinois Department of Revenue had told their attorney ( the Attorney General of the State of Illinois) to tell me to pound sand.

Like these elder cleansing the intimidation was rampant.     The IDR executives in the Daniel Walker regime unbeknownst  me had a cozy relationship with certain mafia kingpins.    A lucrative situation existed.    My lawsuits and Me were thorns that had to be removed post haste after it appeared that Judge Lynch (in the Federal Court) made no secret of the fact that he was enjoying having me in his courtroom, and after Judge O'Brien made no secret that as I had complied with the unwritten procedural rule for Chancery Court = and exhibited a sense of humor he had every intention of Ruling in my favor and granting the injunction.

Let me elaborate.    The Assistance Attorney General assigned to the O'leary case (Maker) was one of those humorless attorneys who was obsessed with his own importance.     Not only was he unwilling to return the car, but, he wanted the full measure of the law.    He could care less that  Tom was an employee of the Tribune and the referring executive had promised to create a whole new religion out of the Director of Revenue and certain other public officials because of the outrage.     Mr. Maker and I had some very harsh words which culminated with me commenting on his ancestor and heritage.     When the case came up for the TR0 under the Civil Rights Act,  Maker informed the Court that I swore on him.

Judge Lynch looked shocked, and turned to me and asked:  "Did you do that?"    I remarked: "yes sir"       Lynch asked me if I finished discussing Maker's heritage and ancestry with him.     I admitted that I had more to say to Mr. Maker.   With that the Judge recessed the case and gave me fifteen minutes to finish my diatribe.    

When we returned before the bench, the Judge asked me I had completed my conversation with Maker - I said "yes" and the Judge turned to Maker and "ordered the car returned along with all its contents" and set the matter for further hearing on a date certain.

Later that morning I appeared with Assistant Attorney General Bromberg before Judge O'Brien in Circuit Court.    The judge set a hearing for the next morning a 10:30 A.M.     During the interim I talked to my friend Harry and told him about the case.    A few hours later a Special Agent from the IRS' political corruption unit and a sweet lady from the Investigation Unit of the IDR both called me.     When the conversations ended I was aware that the case was politically charged and remunerations had passed at the highest levels of the IDR and some rather unsavory people.   Unfortunately the evidence was elusive and ****.     At 10:00 PM or thereabouts I received an anonymous call from my sweet lady at the IDR informing me that at the "request" of the assistant Attorney General all the investigators were re-writing their reports and I would have the original reports delivered to me sometime before 5:00 A.M.

I put on my case in less than hour and turned the forum over to the AG.     For reasons I never understood William Benson was placed on the stand.     Benson testified like a robot.     He followed the script beautifully.    He had the correct answer to everything.       My cross examination of Benson was also classic.    

 Me:   Mr. Benson:  Is this the report that you authored in relationship to the arrest of Tom O'Leary a week ago? 

Benson:  Yes.

Me:  When did you place the words on this document?

Benson:  last night!

Judge O'Brien leaped out of his chair with the words: "LAST NIGHT!"     He looked sternly at the Assistant AG and noted that he (the assistant) was standing by the counsel table yelling something =  he had also knocked over the pitcher of water and it was soaking into the carpet!      O'Brien screamed at him *****.     

When order was restored and the angry judge calmed down I asked Benson:

Me:   If this the original report that you wrote?

O'Brien was out of his chair and yelling for us to approach the bench.     The Assistant AG was clutching his chest and having trouble breathing!     

Benson admitted that it was and the Assistant AG was almost in tears as he admitted his culpability as his assistant was screaming that there was no legal way for me to have obtained the documents - he himself watched the IDR investigators throw their original reports into the trash.      

The next witness was Investigator Kelso.   The AG asked him how he happened to stop the O'Leary car.    Honest to God - his answer was:   "I saw a vehicle with many suspicious people in it!"     On cross, I asked him if everyone in the car looked suspicious.    I had a 'wet dream' when he said "everyone of them."     I wander over to the gallery, picked up Tom's toddler daughter who was wearing a RED DRESS wandered back to my side of the courtroom with the child in my arms and asked:  "What did you find suspicious about this young lady?"      

Judge O'Brien lost it and had to leave the bench to compose himself, and Mr. Bromberg looked like he wanted to disappear.     28 days later I had my injunction and finding that the Cigarette Tax Act was Unconstitutional as it violated the Commence Clause.

I mention this case because it did not end there.    Yes, O'Leary got his vehicle back, all the charges were dropped, etc;  but I lost in the Illinois Supreme Court twice.      

During the next 9 years the IDR wrote to the IRS that I was a tax cheat, demanding a tax audit, a hit man was apprehended in the alley behind my home, my office was broken into and my phone privacy was non-existent.    I could hear my daughter talking on the phone by turning on the AM radio in my vehicle.     Not only that I had an IDR escort from time to time.    We had no privacy whatsoever.     I also had some interesting license plates assigned to me:  KD 104, KD 105.     (coincidence!)

I have to admit, I was not entirely innocent.     My first act of defiance was to encourage my teen age daughter to make full use of the telephone i.e. study on it, keep contact with her friends etc.     The IDR has hundreds - maybe thousands of recorded conversations concerning the High School Social life of Naomi and her friends.   In fact several years after the case ended RM (one of the investigators) stopped me on the street to inquire:  "Did Wendy ever marry Warren?"     My sweet little lady became a spy for me and the Director could not meet with his paramour without me knowing where, when, etc.     

In discussions with my friend Harry, Norm, et al I was able to put together an MO for my own investigation.    I turned the information over to the Federal authorities that was developed.    (Norm was a sound engineer who held 300 patents and had more listening devices than the CIA has today.   He also could locate a bug electronically faster than a miscreant could place it.    Harry had an analytical mind that allowed him to see the details in the big picture that were invisible to most of us mortals.       The three of us along with Roger L, and Jack A (who was with the FBI) figured out what was going on and why the IDR was doing what it should not have been doing.

We were a little too smart for my clients.     The case went to the Supreme court.    About a week before the decision was to be expected, my spy at the IDR furnished me a draft of the decision that was going to be released.  

 An attorney by the name of Willard Ice, employed at the IDR, had drafted the decision.   It was going to be the Illinois Supreme Court decision.    The contempt case against the Director was similarly going to be disposed of.     If you want to read the decisions they are in the Illinois Reports under the name of O'Leary vs. Allprin (sp).

Each Justice who participated in the decision received a lucrative assignment from the IDR upon retirement.    

I mention this because from a practical standpoint even when you have the miscreants dead to rights and the Department of the Treasury special agents (and the FBI) are in your corner a 'wired case' is not going to be won because the plaintiff is the spirit of virtue.    Governor Walker did go to jail.   The director of Revenue resigned and left the State.    The Assistant AG did have a heart attack and died.   Bill Benson was railroaded.    Each of the agents got the short end of the stick one way or another.    I had a ball even though the case was fixed and I even made a couple of dollars.    My spy was never caught -    The real bad guys (the outfit) lost a lucrative source of revenue and a couple of the most obvious miscreants had mysterious deaths - or disappeared never to be seen again.

Eliot - I do not know if the money that came out of the cigarette cases is equal to the money nationwide that the wrongful enforcement of the Cigarette Use Taxes generates, but they are close.      Yes, I considered a RICO action but calmer heads prevailed.     I had evidence (that I turned over to the USA) as to why the IDR enforcement was taking place.    The scheme was very clever.    The State of Illinois printed their cigarette stamps in an outfit related printing establishment.     The state would order x stamps, and x + y stamps were printed.    When the manufacturing was going to sell product in Illinois x number of cartons with x number of stamps was shipped to Illinois.     When the outfit purchased their cartons of cigarettes they purchased y number of cartons and put y number of stamps on those cartons.     The only competition was from Interstate Commerce and because Illinois is heavy on sin taxes legitimate travelers and other consumers were purchasing their cigarettes from low tax States and Native American outlets.     The use tax only applied if two situations occurred:  1) the cigarettes had come to rest in Illinois and 2) they were unstamped.

State officials were recruited to put the foreign state retailers (and native Americans) out of business.    Spreading the wealth around was ultimately curbed by the O'Leary case and the enforcement of the law by the IRS and FBI.   The corrupt political figures made a mistake when they assaulted an employee of the Chicago Tribune as in those days the Chicago Tribune took care of its own and treated every employee as if he/she was a member of Col McCormick's family.    Loyalty was a two way street - until, the sale of the Chicago American - that is another story.

My point!    The guardianship scandal is 'wired!'     Do not bring a knife to a gunfight! 

Ken Ditkowsky

www.ditkowskylawoffice.com