CHICAGO — Ald. Patrick Daley Thompson (11th), the nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley and grandson of former Mayor Richard J. Daley, is facing federal charges of income tax fraud and making false statements to regulators.
The 51-year-old Bridgeport alderman was charged Thursday with five counts of willfully filing a false income tax return and two counts of knowingly making a false statement to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., according to an indictment returned in U.S. District in Chicago.
The indictment comes after a Chicago Sun-Times investigation revealed that Thompson bought a summer home in Michigan with a secret loan from a small Bridgeport bank that federal regulators later shut down.
Thursday’s indictment is part of the wider federal investigation into the bank — Washington Federal Bank for Savings.
According to the charges, Thompson received $219,000 in loans from Washington Federal between 2011 and 2014, before he was elected to the Chicago City Council in 2015.
He made just one re-payment before halting payments. And he failed to pay interest on the money he received, according to the indictment.
The bank was shut down in 2017, just two weeks after bank president John F. Gembara was found dead in the Park Ridge home of a bank customer and friend. The death was ruled a suicide.
After the closure, regulators tried to collect $66 million in outstanding loans Washington Federal had out, including the money lent to Thompson. In 2018, the alderman told regulators he owed just $110,000, which wasn’t true, according to the indictment.
Thompson is also accused of filing five years of false income tax returns, saying he paid interest on the loan when he had not, the indictment said.
On his 2013 return, for example, Thompson reported paying $32,259 in mortgage interest that he never paid. The feds said he listed his income that year as $356,951 “when defendant knew his taxable income was in excess of the amount reported on the return.”
The next year, he claimed to have paid $34,735 in mortgage interest he never paid. He also reported taxable interest of $454,753 “when defendant knew his taxable income was in excess of the amount reported on the return,” according to the indictment.
If convicted, Thompson could face a maximum of 30 years in prison.
In a statement issued by his lawyer, Chris Gair, Thompson said he was “very disappointed by the Justice Department’s decision to return an indictment against me today for inadvertent tax preparation errors and my incorrect memory about the amount of a personal bank loan.”
“When the bank provided me the documents showing the actual amount of the loan, I promptly paid it back,” he said. “Both matters were resolved before there was any government investigation.
“I want to make two points. First, my conscience is clear. I did not commit any crime, I am innocent and I will prove it at trial.
“Second, I am, first and foremost, a public servant. The charges in the indictment do not relate in any way to my public service or to my professional life. I remain 100 percent dedicated to serving the people of Chicago to the best of my ability.”
Thompson is the youngest son of former Mayor Richard J. Daley’s eldest daughter, Patricia Marino. He worked as a real estate attorney before being elected to the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District’s board in 2012. He succeeded James Balcer as 11th Ward alderman in 2015 and won re-election in 2019.
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