Ex-Chicago Ald. Edward Vrdolyak sentenced to federal prison. Here are 5 things to know about the man known as ‘Fast Eddie.’
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Former Chicago Ald. Edward “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak was sentenced Friday to 18 months in prison in a tax scheme related to his receipt of millions of dollars in Illinois tobacco settlement money.
A political powerhouse in Chicago politics during the 1980s, Vrdolyak is perhaps best known to Chicagoans for his leading role in Council Wars, a racially charged political maelstrom nearly 40 years ago in which a group of white aldermen worked against Harold Washington, Chicago’s first Black mayor. But he’s had a long, colorful career characterized by wheeling and dealing in and around local politics and law.
Here are five things to know about the former Chicago alderman:
Who’s Ed Vrdolyak?
First elected alderman of the Southeast Side 10th Ward in 1971, the now 82-year-old Vrdolyak earned the nickname “Fast Eddie” for his knack for backroom negotiations.
He was the chair of the Cook County Democratic Party during the 1980s. He unsuccessfully challenged Washington in the 1987 Chicago mayor’s race, running as a member of the Illinois Solidarity Party, which gubernatorial candidate Adlai Stevenson organized the year before after breaking from the Democratic Party.
Vrdolyak then switched to the Republican Party and ran for mayor in 1989 on the GOP ticket, losing to Richard M. Daley.
Vrdolyak also was an early political patron of now-disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, hiring him straight out of law school.
What did he have to do with Council Wars?
After Washington first got elected in 1983, Vrdolyak — along with his longtime friend Ald. Edward Burke — led the “Vrdolyak 29” bloc of white aldermen who worked to stymie Washington’s agenda. The gridlock drew national attention to Chicago, with The Wall Street Journal dubbing the city “Beirut on the Lake.”
Did he have other political chapters?
Vrdolyak did not hold public office again, but he later wound up in Cicero where he did work for then-town President Betty Loren-Maltese, who was later convicted of corruption.
What are the charges this time?
Vrdolyak pleaded guilty in 2019 to obstructing an IRS investigation into payments to and from a friend and associate, attorney Daniel Soso, related to the state’s $9.3 billion settlement with tobacco companies in the late 1990s. Prosecutors said Vrdolyak was paid at least $12 million in fees stemming from the settlement even though he did no legal work on the case and hid his involvement from the Illinois attorney general.
Has he had prior brushes with the law?
In 2010, Vrdolyak was sentenced to 10 months behind bars for his role in a $1.5 million real estate kickback scheme linked to the federal probe that felled then-Gov. Blagojevich. The punishment came down only after prosecutors appealed U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur’s controversial ruling granting Vrdolyak probation.
“Vrdolyak came from a privileged background. He was well educated, served as an elected official, and had a thriving legal practice,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu wrote in a sentencing memo filed last month. “Despite all these advantages in life, he has chosen time and again to be a schemer, and to break the law.”
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