Grand Old Police Blotter: The Maltese Defalc-on

Republican mob boss and family-values champion Betty Loren-Maltese will spend the next eight year in the federal pen, far, far away from her beloved loose slots ... er, adopted daughter.

[Former Cicero, IL Mayor] Loren-Maltese, 53, looted the Cicero town coffers of $12 million as part of a mobbed-up insurance firm that siphoned money out of town through overbilling, bogus bills and outright theft, an Internal Revenue Service and FBI investigation showed.

The reputed mob boss of Cicero, Michael Spano Sr., got more than 14 years behind bars while Cicero's crooked police chief, Emil Schullo, got nine years for their involvement in the insurance scheme and another Cicero scam....

The health insurance fraud created true victims.

Cicero town employees suffering cancer or other diseases routinely had to wait and wait to get their medical bills paid, some even being threatened with having their treatment cut off....

The only time Loren-Maltese showed emotion was when she spoke of her 5-year-old daughter, Ashleigh Rose.

The judge said he had "substantial reservations" about the timing of the adoption of the little girl, which came shortly after Loren-Maltese would have learned about the pending federal investigation.

Loren-Maltese, wearing a chocolate pantsuit with a leopard print collar, bristled at the idea she would use her adopted child as a pawn. She had asked for less time in prison because she is a single mother and there is no one to care for her daughter--a request the judge rejected. (From the Chicago Sun-Times)

Loren-Maltese's Republican replacement, Ramiro Gonzalez, intends to rely on his incarcerated predecessor, for advice. "'I hope that she's accessible--I mean, via phone--because she's an encyclopedia of how government runs here,' Gonzalez said."