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Monday, July 21, 2008
Ind. Courts - "Tax accounting trio unsung heroes in region's public corruption fight"
Andy Grimm of the Gary Post-Tribune has an interesting report today featuring the FBI tax accountants behind the Lake County anti-corruption efforts. The story begins:
If you follow Northwest Indiana's colorful, larcenous political history, you know the names: Operation Bar-Tab, Operation Lights Out, Operation Restore Public Integrity.By one name or another, federal investigators have taken down elected officials and political players for decades: judges who fixed tickets for cash, mayors who took kickbacks on municipal projects, insiders who took money for the judicious use of clout.
The common thread that binds them, and the one that hung them out to dry, are a trio of tax accountants you've never heard of: Harry Bigda, Paul Drapac and Al Johnson.
For a combined 120 years, the three IRS revenue agents have burrowed through reams of documents like moles in a flower bed, looking for the ill-gotten gains of public officials and their cronies.
Bigda retired in January, Drapac earlier this month, and Johnson -- the senior member of the trio with 42 years -- will wind up his career in August.
"It's a tremendous loss. These three guys have been with me since the first day," said U.S. Attorney David Capp, who led Operation Lights Out in the 1980s and took over Restore Public Integrity this year when he was appointed to replace Joseph Van Bokkelen.
"To me they are the heart of our public corruption efforts, these behind-the-scenes guys, doing the heavy lifting."
Behind-the-scenes doesn't begin to describe the workplace the three shared in the basement of the Hammond federal building, a windowless room stacked with over-stuffed banker's boxes.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 21, 2008 08:39 AM
Posted to Indiana Courts