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Friday, April 26, 2013

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Has UNO's great charter school heist really ended?

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Has UNO's great charter school heist really ended?:


Has UNO's great charter school heist really ended?

Madigan greased the deal
FINALLY, the state has cut off money to the UNO charter school hustlers. After countless media exposures and with the IG and possibly federal investigators looking around the $98 million swindle pulled off by Juan Rangel and the d’Escoto brothersGov. Quinn finally turned off the money spigot -- at least for now.

But Rangel, who co-chaired Rahm Emanuel's 2011 mayoral campaign, still has the so-sue-me look of the cat who ate the canary. Why? Well, for one thing, Quinn's move is too little, too late. UNO hustlers have already pocketed and spent $54.7 million of the money much of it funneled directly to Rangel's pal Federico “Fred” d’Escoto. Fred's brother Miguel d'Escoto, a city transportation commissioner in the Daley administration, resigned from his $200,000-a-year position as UNO’s No. 2 executive after Sun-Times reporter began sniffing out the story.

Another reason Rangel is still smiling -- UNO hustlers think they are too connected to be taken down. They could never have gamed the system