Prosecutors want 19 months in prison for ex-Teamsters boss John Coli Sr. in extortion case

Federal prosecutors are asking for 19 months in prison for former Teamsters union boss John Coli Sr., who pleaded guilty to extorting a Chicago film studio boss and helped federal investigators secure a ghost payrolling conviction against state Sen. Thomas Cullerton.

Coli, for years a politically connected and nationally known fixture in the Teamsters, pleaded guilty in July 2019 to one count each of receiving illegal payments and filing a false income tax return, admitting he extorted a total of $325,000 from Cinespace Studio President Alex Pissios.

In a sentencing memo filed late Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu wrote that Coli’s extortion was “prolonged, calculated, and deliberate,” involving regular bribe payments in “envelopes bursting with wads” of $25,000 in cash.

Coli also “milked his position as a union official” in other ways over the years, netting him more than a half a million dollars in benefits including meals in Las Vegas, box seats at baseball and football games and the use of a yacht and two-person crew to cruise around the Italy, the prosecution filing stated.

“This was not some technical violation of the statute; Coli did not receive small knick-knacks, chocolates, or promotional products,” Bhachu wrote in the 19-page memo. “The picture painted here is not of a moment’s indiscretion, or one bad decision, but rather a conscious, prolonged effort by defendant Coli to exploit his position of trust for private gain.”

Federal sentencing guidelines called for up to about three years behind bars. Coli should be given a significant break, however, because of his cooperation against Cullerton, according to the filing.

Cullerton was sentenced in June to a year in federal prison for pocketing more than a quarter of a million dollars in salary and benefits from the Teamsters with Coli’s blessing, despite doing little or no work.

Coli also admitted his own guilt and has paid back more than $300,000 in forfeiture to the government, which Bhachu wrote is “not an easy thing for a prominent local leader to do.”

“It is easy to assemble a busload of public figures similarly situated to Coli in this district who could not bring themselves to accept responsibility for their conduct, even when there was overwhelming evidence of their guilt staring them in the face,” wrote Bhachu, who heads the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s public corruption team and is leading prosecutions against Chicago Ald. Edward Burke, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, and a many others.

Coli’s attorney, Joseph Duffy, is scheduled to file his sentencing memo next week. Coli will be sentenced by U.S. District Chief Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer on Oct. 26.

The news of Coli’s cooperation in 2019 made waves in Illinois political circles since Coli had used his national position with the Teamsters to hold sway with some of the city and state’s most powerful elected officials — including Madigan, former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, ex-Gov. Pat Quinn and his successor, Bruce Rauner.

It also marked an abrupt turnabout for Coli, who for years basked in an old-school image of an immovable force, thumbing his nose at investigators.

Coli once told a lawyer in sworn testimony to “go (expletive) yourself.” He dodged controversy for years — from suspicious appointments to state boards to allegations of organized crime ties — often accusing his accusers of using overzealous investigative tactics.

And in 2016, Coli was caught on an undercover FBI recording telling Pissios to fire an executive at Cinespace who was purportedly balking at paying him extortion money.

“You can’t have a (expletive) rat in the woodpile,” Coli allegedly said to Pissios, who was wearing a hidden wire for the FBI. “You can’t have a whistleblower here.”

Coli pleaded guilty to extorting a series of $25,000 quarterly payments from Pissios that Coli failed to report on his tax returns, cheating the Internal Revenue Service and state of Illinois out of about a combined $117,000 in tax revenue.

In October 2016, the FBI directed Pissios to tell Coli that other executives were questioning the payments and threatening to fire him if he didn’t stop, according to the agreement.

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Coli responded by threatening to have his workers strike, according to the document.

“We’ll shut it down tomorrow,” prosecutors quoted Coli as saying. “I will (expletive) have a picket line up here and everything will stop.”

Later in the conversation, Coli suggested that Pissios should “get rid” of the studio’s chief financial officer because of the flap, explaining that there were “things that are gonna come up that you’re gonna have to deal with,” according to the plea.

Records show the CFO of Cinespace is Mark Degnen, whose wife, Bridget, is a Cook County commissioner.

Several weeks later, Pissios informed Coli as part of the undercover ruse that he’d told another executive at the studio about the threat of a strike and the executive had agreed the extortion payments should continue.

“Perfect,” Coli responded, according to the plea agreement.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com