Crime Busting, Judge Busting Tough Chicago Investigator Talks About 40 Years Of Putting Government Crooks Behind Bars

Sherman Skolnick, who spearheaded the investigation into largest judicial bribery scandal in U.S. history in 1969, is now back again to finger crooked judges on the U.S. Supreme Court. Saying the Bush administration wants him arrested as a domestic terrorist, Skolnick claims Bush and his cronies are in hot water involving the Chicago grand jury investigation headed by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

August 10, 2005

Some people say Sherman Skolnick has gone over the edge more than once during his 46 year career of investigating judicial bribery, mafia payoffs, CIA hit squads, pedophilia in the Bush administration and whatever else falls on the table in his self-imposed quest to keep the corrupt honest.

And some people say Skolnick is falling over the cliff once again with his recent article, pinning indictments on Bush and his cronies based on what he calls credible sources, telling him they have been nabbed for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Chicago grand jury investigation about the Valerie Plame-CIA leak case.

"I knew I would be called a liar for this one, but it won't be the first time or the last," said the tough talking investigator, nicknamed the "judge buster," from his home on Chicago's south side, a place he has called home for the last 54 years.

And, in the face of adversity and doubt, Skolnick would be the first to crack a smile and scoff at his detractors, saying "it goes with the territory" since dealing with dark, back alley payoff type stories brings dark, back alley comments about most anything he writes and investigates.

But, on the bright side, there are many others who know his work well, swearing on a stack of holy bibles about Skolnick's analytical approach, incredible energy and a 40 year data base of sources he uses in order to finger the bad guys who are swimming like sharks and feeding off the people's money.

And to those who know the 'judge buster" even better, know him as a friend or colleague, he is considered nothing less than a national treasure and a man who will stop at nothing to find out the truth, even if it means stripping the robes off the country's most powerful and corrupt judges, even if it means taking on the Bush administration right square in the belly where it hurts with accusations of homosexuality and pedophilia running rampant right in the halls of the White House.

In this shady world of backroom deals, syndicate payoffs, and well-oiled corruption, Skolnick has somehow over the years found his place, a place on the outside looking in, a place where he is always staring in very closely with a watchful eye and a finely tuned ear able to spot a crooked judge or a politician as quick as a dog can sniff out a bone.

It would take several book volumes to detail all the investigations Skolnick has been involved in and all the judges and crooked politicians he's been responsible for putting behind bars since the early 1960's. But like any good baseball hitter, only as good as his last at bat, Skolnick prefers to talk about his last investigation first, working his way back to when he was a young man in Chicago who represented his parents before the Illinois Supreme Court for being bilked by a shady broker for $7,000, the family's entire life savings.

Besides breaking the story about the Bush indictments by the Chicago grand jury last week, Skolnick is in the midst of a five-year investigation of corruption within the U.S. Supreme Court regarding Bush v. Gore and the 2000 election. He said he initiated his investigation over what he calls a ruling that is a travesty of justice and a demonstration of corruption at the highest level of the judiciary.

But before rolling up his sleeves and putting on his gloves to fight the likes of Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia, who he calls the "go to hell' judge, Skolnick took time out to recall the his parent's struggle with the Illinois Supreme Court, the case that got Skolnick started along time ago in the tireless and often-times thankless business of uncovering corruption among the rich and powerful.

"I trained myself in the law," recalls Skolnick, who prepared all the legal documents and arguments every legal step of the way, the case ending up in the state's high court. "I told the judge right there in open court if my parents were not treated fairly, I would one day come back and put every one of the crooked judges on the high court in jail where they belonged

"And that's what I did when they came down with their crooked decision against my parents. Honest judges are the most endangered species in our country and one rule of thumb I have used over the years is to look for a the closest bank near the courthouse to find the black-robed criminals.

"It's not in the back alleys with a bag of money where the judges are bribed. It's usually right in the bank owned by the judges, a bank owned also by underworld and criminal types. This is where the bribing goes on and where all the dirty money is transferred.

"Not all the judges are corrupt, mind you, there are some good ones. And I would also like to say that I am always fair with who I am accusing. In fact, when I have the goods on let's say a corrupt politician or judge, I usually tell them what I have and that if they come clean to the public, admitting what they did, I'll put in a good word to the DA in order that he go a little easier on him.

"But in all the years, not one of them took me up on the offer. I remember telling that in the hallway in a Chicago courthouse to former Illinois Governor and U.S. Appeals Court Judge Otto Kerner, who went to jail when I found out he took bribes involving horseracing cases"

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Skolnick In 1969 Uncovers Biggest Judicial Bribery Scandal In U.S. Histor

After promising his parents and vowing to come back to investigate the wrongdoings on the Illinois Supreme Court, Skolnick made good on his word, creating a public judicial watchdog group called the "Citizens' Committee To Clean Up The Courts" in an effort to stamp out corruption.

Setting his investigative sights on his own home turf first, Skolnick uncovered unknown documents in the basement of a Cook County building, showing and eventually proving that two Illinois Supreme Court Justices took bribes from a banker and former chief tax collector of Illinois, Theodore Isaacs, to wipe out criminal charges against him.

In August of 1969, Time Magazine featured a story about Skolnick and the Illinois case, the largest judicial bribery scandal in the country, a scandal that eventually put the former director of the Illinois Department of Revenue in jail along with one of his accomplices, a sitting federal appeals court judge.

Besides catapulting Skolnick into the national limelight, the case also began a lasting relationship with U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who was then acting as special counsel to the commission investigating the corrupt judges.

Stevens' work on the commission also catapulted him into the public eye, beginning his rise to fame in the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, Skolnick still keeps in touch with Stevens, calling him an honorable and honest man, who also wrote the introduction to Skolnick's most recent book titled "Ahead of the Parade," which in part looks at the lives of three honest high-level judges who were banished from the bench and then terrorized for, of all things, making honest and fair decisions.

"This one particular judge in my book was a chief judge in the federal courts who made a decision against a major oil company," said Skolnick, adding that he learned through investigating the judge's story about a secret judicial tribunal where judges who try to buck the system are dealt with in an underhanded and mafia-like manner.

"I get a call from the judge one day and he says, 'Sherman, you can't believe what's happened? My brother in law who is a lawyer was just disbarred and then one day I came into my office, an office under tight security, and everything was gone. I mean everything. Including my files, my file cabinets, everything cleaned out!'"

Skolnick's book goes on to talk about other honest judges with similar stories, one having his court room taken over by mafia figures and another quitting the bench and relocating thousands of miles away after ruling against the president of a state bar association caught with perjured affidavits in a million dollar probate case.

"This other judge calls me and tells me that his court has been taken over by the mafia, but when he goes to the FBI to investigate, agents instead begin to investigate the judge and not the mafia. After having his family threatened, the judge finally resigned," said Skolnick, adding that these examples prove his point about honest judges being the most endangered species in America.

Skolnick Uncovers A Nationwide Network Of Secret Judicial Tribunals

More- http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/article/1518131/31285.htm

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