The former mayor of East Chicago, Indiana will have to pay back the city millions of dollars as part of a civil judgment.
Millions of dollars? Try a $108-million.
That’s the amount Robert Pastrick and two other city officials must pay back East Chicago. Pastrick served as mayor for more than 30 years. A federal judge in Hammond handed down the judgment Thursday. It’s part of a civil federal racketeering lawsuit filed by the Indiana Attorney General’s office to recoup millions of dollars spent illegally by the city as part of a public works project. The project needlessly replaced concrete sidewalks before the mayor’s re-election campaign in 1999.
Pastrick was never criminally charged, but other city officials were convicted, and one former councilman fled to Greece to avoid prosecution.