ULLICO
Ullico Board on Defensive; Fashions an "Investigation"
The scandal-scarred board of Ullico, Inc.,
appointed labor-friendly ex-Ill. Gov. James R. Thompson (R) Apr. 29 to
"review" the insider trading scheme that allowed some directors of the
union-dominated insurance company to make hundreds of thousands in tainted
profits. To see just how labor-friendly, visit http://www.ipsn.org/ullico/thompson_ullico.htm,
for a picture from when Thompson was governor. It shows Thompson with Robert
A. Georgine, now the Ullico president, who helped select Thompson for the
lucrative investigatory job and who Thompson is supposed to be investigating.
Also pictured is Angelo Fosco. The deceased Fosco was president, as was
his father, of the Laborers' Int'l Union of N. Am from 1975-1993. The government's
draft 1994 racketeering suit that led to a quasi-government takeover of
LIUNA, stated that Fosco "was an associate of the Chicago [La Costa Nostra]
family" and accused him of racketeering acts related to extortion of LIUNA
members. Also in the picture is deceased plumbers and AFL-CIO boss Edward
Brabec.
Thankfully, in addition to Thompson's "investigation," a federal grand jury in Washington and the Dep't of Labor are examining the stock deals to determine if the union presidents who sit on Ullico's board made money at the expense of their unions.
The resolution empowering Thompson was approved unanimously by the Ullico board during a closed-door session. Thompson, currently chairman of the Chicago law firm of Winston & Strawn, confessed: "I'll do the investigation that they've asked me to do. I'll ask the questions they want me to get answered." [Bloomberg News 4/30/02; N.Y. Times 5/1/02]
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