From the Daily Herald:

Probation for ex-aide to senator
By Shamus Toomey Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted March 19, 2003

U.S. Sen. Peter Fitzgerald's former political director was sentenced to three years' probation Tuesday for not reporting $81,000 in income from a direct mail company knee-deep in the Operation Safe Road investigation.

Tim Holloway, 45, of Elgin, resigned from Fitzgerald's staff shortly before being indicted on tax charges last October. He pleaded guilty and will keep his job as Streamwood's public works superintendent, officials there said.

A longtime Republican insider, Holloway held a side job as a salesman for Bridgeview-based Unistat, a political mail house owned by former Streamwood state Rep. Roger Stanley.

Testimony in the Scott Fawell corruption trial has linked Stanley and Unistat to alleged corruption in the secretary of state's office under former Gov. George Ryan when Ryan was secretary of state in the 1990s.

Holloway got caught in the prosecution web and later admitted not reporting $81,000 in commission from Unistat and a company that laundered money for Unistat. Holloway has since repaid $27,000 in back taxes owed for 1998 through 2001, prosecutors said.

In a twist, Holloway admitted he directed many of his commission checks to charity. But he failed to report the money as income and took $28,850 in charitable deductions nonetheless, according to his plea bargain.

In addition to probation, Holloway, who agreed to help in ongoing investigations, was ordered to pay a $4,000 fine and perform 400 hours of community service.

His full-time job is safe, however. Gary O'Rourke, Streamwood's police chief and acting village manager, said "even if we were so inclined" to fire Holloway, village attorneys already determined a tax charge was not just cause for dismissal under union contracts.

O'Rourke said he was "obviously distressed" about Holloway's problems, but said they were not related to his village duties.

"He has always fulfilled the obligations of his village job and then some," O'Rourke said.

Meanwhile in the Fawell trial, jurors will resume deliberations today after more than five full days of trying to reach a verdict.