From the Chicago Sun-Times

Two aldermen received donations from accused car dealers
BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter
3/30/05
An admittedly "embarrassed" Ald. Ray Suarez (31st) acknowledged Tuesday he personally sold fund-raising tickets to one of three West Side used auto dealers accused of laundering more than $9 million in drug money, and said he's planning to give the money back.
"It's embarrassing but nowadays, it's hard. You don't know if somebody is doing something illegal. People don't have signs in front of their heads saying they're involved in illegal activity. I don't know what people do in their personal life," Suarez said.
"To this day, I've been clean, and I'm going to remain clean. I just don't do anything illegal. I don't believe in it. We're looking to see how much money we got over the last three or four years and, as soon as we determine this, we're gonna give the money back. We don't want to give the impression that we are supporting or doing anything illegal. That's not what this alderman is about."
Last week, a four-year investigation by federal law enforcement and Chicago Police culminated in the shutdown of three West Side auto dealerships, the seizure of more than 100 luxury vehicles and money-laundering charges against five people, including two dealership owners and two managers.
They were accused of accepting drug money for luxury cars -- sometimes in stacks of $20, $50 and $100 bills -- and depositing cash in amounts under $10,000 to avoid having the shady transactions traced. In some instances, the dealers allegedly put fake liens on fully paid cars, reclaimed the vehicles and either resold them, returned them to drug dealers or offered the drug dealers substitute cars, according to the federal complaint.
One of the accused dealers is 48-year-old Amir Hosseini of Winnetka, who is being held without bond for allegedly laundering more than $9 million over 10 years.
A federal prosecutor has accused Hosseini of dealing heroin and cocaine out of his car lots and stashing some of the narcotics on site.
Received at least $4,000
Three of Hosseini's car dealerships contributed more than $17,000 to local aldermen, with the bulk of the donations in the last five years.
Records show Suarez has received at least $4,000 from one of the dealerships since 2001. Suarez said he would stop by Hosseini's dealership at North Avenue and Kimball once a year -- maybe more if the man he called "Mr. Amir" wasn't there -- to ask if the dealer would buy tickets to the alderman's fund-raiser.
Hosseini would routinely buy a table and pay for the tickets by check, the alderman said. Never once did the aldermen arrange for anyone to purchase a vehicle at Hosseini's dealership, Suarez said.
"He bought tickets and told me to give them away to people. I never dealt with any car purchases or nothing. I didn't even know what was going on at the place. I don't sell cars for the man," the alderman said.
"I didn't know that he was doing anything illegal there. Nobody said anything to me about it. I said, 'Hello. I'm having a fund-raiser. Would you help us? OK, fine.' I don't know him that well. I just know him from seeing him. I was shocked when I saw the news. . . . I didn't even know that he owned other dealers. . . . I thought the ones on North Ave. were the only ones he owned."
Ald. Billy Ocasio (26th) acknowledged that he, too, has received campaign contributions from Hosseini even though he has joined his constituents in opposing Hosseini's attempts to expand his North Avenue dealership and open a nightclub behind the dealership.
Like Suarez, Ocasio said he wants no part of Hosseini's money -- but he has a better idea about what to do with it.
"If everything that has been said is what they've done, I'm not sure you want to give money back to them. I might as well donate it to some charity," he said, vowing to find anti-drug groups.