Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • Page 190

5 Citysuburbs Copycats may be behind growing reports of police impostors By John Gorman Police said Ronald Vertucci, 57, of a young man in his 20s posing as a police officer. He accosted her Wednesday morning as she walked along a deserted road. But the girl refused the man's order that she get into his white, four-door car, said Mukwonago Patrol Officer Robert Craig. "She said he didn't look much like a police officer," Craig said. "He showed her a badge, and she said, 'Where's your red light and And he said, 'I'm But the girl told him she wasn't going anywhere with him and walked away." That move might have saved the life of the teen, whom Craig de scribed as "testy and in May, when a woman was pulled odically, and we have made some arrests," Holt said.

He said that investigators were checking on those people previously charged with impersonating police officers. No one has been arrested in the latest incidents or in a similar attack in Morton Grove this week. Early Tuesday, a 22-year-old woman fought off an attempted abduction by a man wearing a blue police-style shirt who had pulled her over in the 8800 block of Menard Avenue. Morton Grove police said they do not believe the incident was related to the McHenry County incidents. was arrested after he allegedly tried to pull over another car Thursday, then flashed phony police credentials at a sheriffs police officer.

Authorities said the officer had just left a briefing about police impostors when he encountered Vertucci, who was charged with impersonating a police officer and faced traffic charges. The arrest came just one day after two impostor incidents in southern Wisconsin. In the first incident, authorities said, a 14-year-old girl who left school in Mukwonago after becoming sick spurned the overtures About 45 minutes later, a 42-year-old woman from Whitewater, was pulled over just east of Ft. Atkinson by a red Chevrolet Caprice driven by a tall, large man in his 20s dressed in a blue uniform with a small badge, according to a spokesman for the Jefferson County Sheriffs Department. As the man approached the woman's car, a second man, older and heavier, remained in the car, the spokesman said.

After warning the woman against speeding, the man allowed her to drive off, the spokesman said. The incidents apparently began over in McHenry County by a man driving an unmarked white car with flashing lights. She was abducted, driven to an area near Walworth, and raped. In August, a similar ruse was used against another McHenry County woman, who was taken to an isolated area near Mundelein, raped and left in a cornfield. Such incidents are not uncommon, said Lt.

Don Holt, of the Wisconsin State Patrol District that covers the counties encompassing the sites of the latest incidents. "Impersonations happen peri Chicago Tribune, Saturday, September 19, 1992 Section 1 and Joseph Kirby Authorities were trying to determine Friday whether the attacks on women from Morton Grove to Ft. Atkinson, by men posing as police officers were the work of one man or by copycats. In the most recent phony-cop case, however, the intended victim was not a woman but two men. A Cook County sheriffs police officer arrested a Hanover Park motorist who allegedly was attempting to curb a car carrying two men on Illinois Highway 53 near Palatine.

Daley casino project gets surprise support gambling for Chicago should also consider "fairness" for the competing horse racing and riverboat gaming industries, which are op-, posed to the project. "We think something can be reached that everybody can be satisfied with," Jackson said. She also said lawmakers should not ignore, the need for a third metropolitan airport, which Daley has shelved in favor of the casino proposal. Aides to Edgar, who has recommended that Daley reconsider a new airport at Lake Calumet if he wants a job-creating project, said the governor would not be swayed by the chamber's endorsement. "It's a little difficult to understand how an organization that represents business statewide could; come out in favor of a proposal that obviously will have a detrimental and negative effect in many areas of this state," Edgar spokesman Daniel Egler said.

Senate Republican leader James "Pate" Philip of Wood Dale said he doubts efforts by the chamber to work for the project will change many minds in the legislature. "Just because some organizations-endorse something, I don't think; anyone will jump off a cliff over-it," Philip said. Trlbune photo by David Klobucar Welcome to CHA police force Andrea Logan hugs her father, Ernest, after ceremonies Friday for the third graduating class of Chicago Housing Authority police offi- cars since the force started in 1990. CHA Chairman Vince Lane addressed the graduates at the Police Department's Training Academy. Alex's bid to silence Patrick told By Matt O'Connor Longtime reputed mob leader Gus Alex tried to buy mob turncoat Lenny Patrick's silence for $50,000, relaying the message through Patrick's own lawyer earlier this year, a federal prosecutor alleged Friday in federal court.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Chris Gair, testifying at an unusual hearing, disclosed that the government launched a criminal investigation of veteran defense lawyer David Mejia after Patrick accused him of relaying Alex's payoff offer sometime this summer Patrick, who began cooperating with the government in April, alleged that Mejia told him Alex would give Patnck's longtime girlfriend $50,000 if Patrick "keeps his mouth shut" and doesn't testify against Alex, Gair testified. Mejia apparently would keep another $50,000 from Alex for himself, Gair said. Gair also revealed that Chief U.S.

District Judge James Moran had appointed a new lawyer for Patrick last month after prosecutors brought the allegations against Mejia to his attention. The disclosures came during a sudden break in Patrick's testimony at Alex's trial on charges of racketeering and extortion. U.S. District Judge James Alesia, presiding over the trial, sent the jury home early in order to hold a hearing on whether an unrelated document damaging to the government's case could be used by the defense in cross-examining Patrick. The government apparently only learned of the document two pages of notes by Patrick this week.

After hearing testimony by Mejia, Gair, and Patrick himself, Alesia in effect ruled Mejia violated Patrick's confidentiality by turning the document over to the defense after he had been subpoenaed for records. Mejia, the first witness at Friday's hearing, contended he had Patrick's authority to reveal certain of their private discussions. The allegations that Mejia had relayed a payoff offer from Alex hadn't been brought out at the hearing yet, and no one asked Mejia about them. While on the stand, Patrick alleged that sometime before the trial Mejia urged him to talk to Alex's lawyer "and tell him everything you told the FBI." "He said, 'If you don't you're going to be shot Patrick said of Mejia. Patrick refused to talk to Alex's lawyer because he feared it might jeopardize his deal with the government, he said.

In testimony Thursday at Alex's trial, Patrick said Alex contributed $30,000 toward his legal fees before he decided to cooperate with the government. On Friday, Patrick expressed animosity toward Mejia, saying his lawyer "milked me dry" by charging him $74,500 in legal fees before Patrick began cooperating. Patrick was charged at the same time as Alex, but pleaded guilty to running a mob "street crew" that extorted nearly $400,000 from several suburban businessmen. In two days of entertaining testimony this week, the colorful Patrick, an admitted gangster for half a century, accused Alex of being the mob boss who had approved the Steelworker, 60, shot to death during failed By Jennifer Lenhart Alvin Bennett and a U.S. Steel co-worker had parked their car on a street in Englewood and were mapping out plans for traveling after retirement when fate and geography took away that chance.

A teen with a gun walked up and asked Bennett for his car, a 1984 Ford LTD. When Bennett refused, the gunman shot and killed him, witnesses told police. "They were talking about retirement, just laughing and talking about what they were going to do with their families," Bennett's wife, Barbara, said, recounting the sto By Rick Pearson Chicago Tribune SPRINGFIELD The Illinois State Chamber of Commerce on Friday conditionally endorsed the proposed $2 billion casino and entertainment center for Chicago. The move by the state's largest business organization, with its traditionally pro-Republican bent, runs counter to Gov. Jim Edgar's entrenched opposition and little support from GOP legislative leaders.

Even more politically unusual is that the chamber's president and chief executive officer, Sally Jackson, formerly worked as part of Edgar's administration, in charge of day-to-day operations in the governor's office. Jackson said the chamber believes the casino proposal, being pushed for passage in the fall veto session by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, is important for economic development through jobs and tourism. "There is nobody out there who is contemplating a $2 billion private investment," Jackson said. "We have to react to that proposal in a very positive way." Still, the chamber said any legislation authorizing legalized casino "We wanted to go to California to see a sister, and St. Louis to see an aunt, and Mississippi," Barbara Bennett said.

"That's what we were going to do, just travel to the different places where our people are." Bennett's widow said that when she and her husband married in 1949, they thought they would spend the rest of their lives in Chicago. They had six children, and now there are 26 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. They owned their two-flat in the 5600 block of South Loomis Boulevard. But now Alvin Bennett is dead, Tribune photo by HT. Vu go by the picnic was worth the expense because it raised worker morale.

Winnetka Couple's kidney transplant delayed A kidney transplant operation involving a Winnetka couple scheduled for Friday at the University of Chicago Hospitals will be rescheduled, according to a hospital spokeswoman. Arthur Solomon, 59, was scheduled to donate a kidney to his wife Lois, 53, but he had an abnormal reaction to the anesthesia, said spokeswoman Sherri McGinnis. 2 jets' close call blamed on anti-collision device Pruitt, 17, of the 5700 block of South Emerald Avenue, and charged him with murder, a Grand Crossing District spokesman said. Pruitt was in custody Friday afternoon, charged with murder. Bennett, who had worked a crane at U.S.

Steel's South Works plant in Chicago for 32 years and had planned to retire in January, had weathered the layoff that came in April, when South Works shut down, and the deaths of two of his children in the last few years. He was mentally prepared to slow down a little, his wife said. Watching the crowds car theft and Barbara Bennett does not get around as easily as she did because of arthritis and heart dis-. ease, and must use a wheelchair. Gunfire is frequent in her neigh-: borhood, she says, and she is re- -luctant to go outside.

She recently joined a neighborhood crime pro-; tection group. But the taking of her husband's life by a street thug has changed her expectations. "As soon as everything is cleared up and I bury my husband, I'm getting out of here," she said. "We've been married 43 years and never been separated all that time. It's really hard on me." Murderer's execution date is set By William Grady Legal affairs writer The Illinois Supreme Court has set Jan.

21 as the execution date for a Death Row inmate who pleaded guilty more than 10 years ago to the murder of a natural-childbirth instructor in Chicago. The brief order Friday moves Hernando Williams, 37, another step closer to execution by lethal injection. He was sentenced to death in 1979 for the rape and murder of Linda Goldstone, who was robbed at gunpoint and abducted as she was on her way to teach an evening class on natural childbirth at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. It was the second time this week that the state high court ordered what could be a certain execution date for a Death Row inmate. On Thursday, the court set Nov.

1 1 as the execution date for Lloyd W. Hampton, a convicted killer who has said he wants no further appeals of his sentence. Although death-penalty foes are expected to launch a flurry of last-minute appeals, Hampton and Williams could be the second and third people executed since the state's current death-penalty statute was adopted in 1977. The first was convicted killer Charles Walker, who was put to death at Stateville prison on Sept. 12, 1990.

Unlike Walker and Hampton, Williams would be the first inmate to face execution unwillingly. His lawyers have challenged his conviction and sentence through the courts, including two appeals to the Illinois Supreme Court. The federal appeals court in Chicago upheld his conviction and sentence last October and the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his latest appeal in June. ries she has heard from witnesses.

"They said, 'We haven't got much, just don't kill "The thief said, 'I don't want anything in your pocket, I just want your Bennett, 60, was shot once in the right side Thursday while parked at 24 W. 60th St. in Englewood, said Wentworth Area Violent Crimes Sgt. Joseph Thompson. Bennett died at 6:30 p.m.

Bennett's friend was not injured, but was too upset to talk about it Friday, Barbara Bennett said. The gunman fled on foot, but witnesses were able to flag down police, who arrested Benjamin the nation's commercial airliner fleet. In Wednesday's incident, a United Airlines jet bound from Ontario, Calif, to O'Hare International Airport was descending to 25,000 feet. The anti-collision device on Delta Flight 1896, a Boeing 727 headed to O'Hare from Salt Lake City at 24,000 feet, erroneously detected a dangerous condition-apparently assuming that the United plane would continue its descentand ordered the Delta pilot to descend, Scholl said. The pilot complied, putting his plane at the same altitude as American Airlines Flight 755, a Boeing 757 heading from O'Hare to San Jose, at 24,000 feet.

The planes were no more than 1.5 miles apart and heading for one another at a combined speed of 900 m.p.h., union officials said. Edelstein contended that the planes were not on a collision course, even if they had stayed at the same altitude. bought outside the county. Edgar's veto could cost the county an estimated $3 million a month in expected revenues from the .75 percent sales and use tax until the General Assembly returns in November and December. If Phelan cannot gain an override of the veto, it may then cost the county an estimated $1 million a month to collect the tax.

Phelan sought the legislation to avoid border jumping by Cook County residents looking for a tax break by making large purchases outside the county. Edgar signed bills that require looters to perform community service and make restitution in addition to other penalties; and that let Three curious squirrel monkeys find some strength in numbers as they look out from their cage Friday morning during the reopening of the primate house in the Lincoln Park Zoo. By Gary Washburn Transportation writer Two passenger jets came dangerously close to one another after a collision-avoidance device gave a faulty the air traffic controller, union charged Friday. The, Federal Aviation Administration confirmed that proper separation was lost in the incident, which took place Wednesday evening over Dubuque, Iowa, but the agency denied union assertions that the two planes were in danger of colliding. None of the pilots involved filed near midair collision reports, said Mort Edelstein, a spokesman in the FAA's Great Lakes regional office.

The agency is investigating the cause of the lost separation, he said. Mark Scholl, an official of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, contended that the incident provides the latest proof of problems with anti-collision warning systems being installed on lesbian activists. Since proposing the ordinance in 1990, Phelan has been caught between homosexual and minority activists who favor the law, and suburban officials who oppose it. Illinois County sales tax collection bill vetoed Gov. Jim Edgar vetoed legislation sought by Cook County Board President Richard Phelan that would have required the state to collect the county's new sales tax on big-ticket purchases such as autos Metropolitan report Cook County Phelan revives issue of rights ordinance Cook County Board President Richard Phelan, under fire for failing to fulfill a campaign pledge to pass a countywide human-rights ordinance, said Friday he would renew his effort this fall.

But the ordinance envisioned by Phelan would cover only unincorporated areas, elected county officials and any municipality that decided it wanted to be covered by the law. As a result, Phelan's promise got mixed reviews Friday from gay and victims seek the assets of murderers and serious felony offenders. Spending on picnic draws auditors' fire State auditors criticized the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority again Friday for spending $13,500 on an annual employee family picnic. State Auditor General William Holland's office said the authority spent the money on balloons, T-shirts, amusement-ride rental and other picnic expenses. Authority officials responded that.