A prosecution witness in the trial of four former Chicago city officials testified yesterday that the Buildings Department, not the defendants, were behind suspicious hires.
Former deputy commissioner Christopher Kozicki said he falsified ratings forms to hire two unqualified inspectors: Kevin Sexton and Andrew Ryan. Both Ryan and Sexton are the sons of high ranking Carpenter’s Union officials. Kozicki said it was his boss, former Buildings commissioner Stan Kaderbeck, who wanted the hires.
Prosecutors, who’d called Kozicki, expected him to say the pressure came from the Mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, where co-defendants Robert Sorich and Timothy Sullivan worked.
Under cross-examination, Kozicki said prosecutors had also asked him about his work in the 11th ward political organization, run by John Daley, the mayor’s brother.
Defense attorney Thomas Durkin asked Kozicki if he thought the government was using him to indict the Daley family. Prosecutors objected to that line of questioning.