A federal jury convicted ex-FBI informant William A. Russell on May 13 on two counts of perjury and one count of obstructing justice for staging a recorded conversation in Sep. 1991 to make it appear as if he passed a $10,000 bribe to IBEW boss Jeremiah J. O’Connor. Investigators initially thought O’Connor took the bribe and began a major union corruption investigation code-named Operation Chi-Lite. The probe cost taxpayers $173,000 and Russell received nearly $113,000. He faces two years in prison. The scheme unraveled when O’Connor produced records showing that he attended a union meeting five hours from Chicago, in Eau Claire, Wis., on the night the alleged payoff on Chicago’s Westside. [Chicago Tribune 5/14/99]
