As one of Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown’s top aides, Beena Patel had crucial information about a widespread bribes-for-jobs scheme being run out of Brown’s office, according to federal prosecutors.
Patel, who at one point supervised more than 500 workers, organized employee fundraisers for Brown in the form of birthday bashes, racetrack events and dinner socials, collecting $50 from attendees at the door and giving it all to the clerk’s campaign fund.
She kept tabs on those who had donated to Brown and recommended who got promoted. And Patel also knew about what prosecutors described as a “mic-drop moment” in the investigation — that in 2014 a friend seeking employment in the clerk’s office had given Brown $15,000 in cash at a Loop restaurant before he was hired.
But when it came time for Patel to testify about it all before a federal grand jury, she chose to lie to protect her boss, prosecutors say.
On Friday, a federal jury convicted Patel on all three counts of perjury for a series of misstatements she made during sworn grand jury testimony in 2015 and 2016, lies that prosecutors said were intentional and meant to throw investigators off course.
Dressed in a turquoise blazer, Patel, 57, stood at the defense table with her hands clasped in front of her and remained expressionless as the verdict was read. A close friend of Brown’s, she told the grand jury that she was a bridesmaid in Brown’s wedding.
She potentially faces up to five years in prison on each count. U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis set sentencing for Nov. 19.
Her attorney, Walter Jones Jr., said he planned to appeal the jury’s decision.
The verdict marked the second conviction of a clerk’s office employee stemming from the long-running probe, both on perjury charges.
Investigators seemed be closing in on Brown herself several years ago when the FBI confronted her outside her South Side home and seized her cellphone. But now, six years after authorities first started looking into the pay-to-play allegations, no one — including Brown — has ever been charged with any bribery scheme.
Despite the cloud hanging over her head, the Democratic stalwart who has run the sprawling and patronage-rich clerk’s office for nearly two decades won re-election to a fifth term in 2016. Last year she even launched an unsuccessful bid for mayor.
In his closing argument Friday, Jones suggested to jurors that prosecutors only charged Patel because they had been unable to get to Brown and needed to save face.
“When this kind of investigation gets botched and you wanted the big tuna, what happens?” he said. “Well, you get down to someone like my client. (She) becomes the scapegoat.”
Patel was found guilty of lying under oath when she told the grand jury that she had never sold tickets to Brown’s fundraisers and didn’t know whether a colleague targeted in the investigation had spoken to law enforcement.
The jury also found that Patel committed perjury by falsely denying in her grand jury statements that she knew about a promotion given to another clerk’s office employee whose brother had donated to Brown’s campaign.
In her closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Heather McShain said Patel’s lies were a deliberate attempt to “shut the door on the grand jury’s further inquiry” into specific allegations of wrongdoing.
“She threw sand in the umpire’s eyes, and she did it knowingly and on lies that were material,” she said.
McShain noted that in her second grand jury appearance in 2016, Patel realized she’d been caught in a lie and tried to correct it after speaking with her attorney.
Patel said in her corrected statement that Brown had indeed taken $15,000 in cash from a man at a meeting at a Corner Bakery near the Daley Center, but that money was ostensibly a business loan. The man, Sivasubramani Rajaram, was hired by Brown a short time later.
While Patel’s statement was a “mic-drop moment in the investigation,” McShain said, by the time she made it, Patel had corrupted the proceedings by so many lies that the grand jury didn’t know what to believe.
“The entire process had been turned on its head,” she said.
Jones, however, characterized Patel’s misstatements as “ticky tacky,” saying they in no way affected an investigation that involved the full arsenal at the disposal of federal investigators, including the testimony of more than 100 witnesses in the grand jury.
“They subpoenaed everything known to man,” he said. “But this investigation turned out to be a botched investigation, and quite frankly, after six years it has been most embarrassing.”
Jones’ argument was interrupted when prosecutors objected to his statements suggesting the $15,000 given to Brown by Rajaram was, in fact, nothing more than a business loan to a goat meat supply company Brown had formed called Goat Masters Inc.
In a 10-minute sidebar, while jurors looked on, Judge Ellis could be seen and heard speaking harshly to Jones about violating the parameters she had set out for closing arguments.
Before the arguments resumed, Ellis told the jury to disregard Jones’ earlier statements, adding that “there has been no evidence in this case — none — that those loans to Goat Masters were legitimate.”
The money paid by Rajaram was central to Patel’s recorded testimony to the grand jury that was played for jurors during the trial. Patel told the grand jury in 2015 she had been informed that Rajaram wanted to invest the funds with Brown and “earn interest.” Since he had no bank account, Rajaram needed to give the money to Brown in cash, Patel said.
Patel testified that she saw Brown and Rajaram meeting face to face at a restaurant in 2014. Brown appeared to be “writing up some paperwork” to memorialize the deal, she told the grand jury.
Later in her 2015 grand jury appearance, Patel denied knowing that Rajaram had spoken to law enforcement about the deal. Prosecutors, though, have said that cellphone records show Patel and Rajaram were in constant communication. Rajaram’s wife, who had also sought employment from Brown’s office, left Patel a voicemail explaining that the FBI had paid her a visit, according to prosecutors.
When Patel returned to the grand jury a second time 10 months later, she said that Brown had personally given her checks to pass along to Rajaram to cover interest earned on the loan.
Rajaram pleaded guilty to perjury and was sentenced in 2017 to three years of probation. He told the judge in his case he lied in his October 2015 grand jury testimony about the money because he feared retaliation from Brown and other high-ranking members of the circuit clerk’s office.
Patel also told the grand jury she regularly bought tickets to Brown’s fashion shows, birthday and anniversary celebrations — and that it was common knowledge that the money raised went directly to Brown’s campaign. But she said Brown never pressured any employees to attend and those who did received no benefit.
“Have you ever asked any of the employees who work for you if they wanted to buy tickets to these events?” a prosecutor asked Patel in front of the grand jury.
“No,” Patel replied.
“You’re sure about that?” the prosecutor said.
“Yes,” Patel said. “If they asked me something, I would say that there is an event coming up. … They go to the Friends of Dorothy Brown website, and at that time they can get a ticket.”
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @jmetr22b
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