Federal authorities made secret recordings at Cinespace Chicago Film Studios as part of an investigation into a Teamsters union boss who last month was charged with extorting the business, the Chicago Tribune has learned.
Recording equipment was used in the West Side facility to surreptitiously capture conversations there, according to sources familiar with the matter. The sources said the surveillance helped collect evidence against powerful union head John Coli Sr., who is charged with extorting $100,000 in cash from the studio, which is home to hit NBC shows “Chicago Fire” and “Chicago P.D.”
The FBI operation included recordings of conversations between Coli and Cinespace President Alex Pissios, the alleged victim of the extortion, sources said.
Spokesmen for both the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI in Chicago declined to comment.
The studios in the former Ryerson Steel factory near Western Avenue and 16th Street have been touted by politicians as a major success story for the city. Mayor Rahm Emanuel staged the launch of his re-election campaign there in 2014.
The studio now runs on an 80-acre site and bills itself as the largest such studio outside of Hollywood. In addition to a host of television productions, several movies, including “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” have filmed there.
A source familiar with the investigation said the feds began making the undercover recordings last year. An indictment returned against Coli in July alleges he began shaking down the studio in or around last October and that the scheme continued through the beginning of April.
In a brief court hearing Thursday, Coli’s attorney, Joseph J. Duffy, told U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer that prosecutors had turned over evidence from the investigation that included “many discs containing electronic material.” He asked the judge for more time to work through the “technical troubles” his staff was having in trying to play the material.
In addition, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu said he anticipated obtaining a superseding indictment in the case, possibly before the next hearing Sept. 26. Superseding indictments typically add new charges, and sometimes defendants, to an existing case.
Coli and his attorney left the courthouse without commenting, and Pissios didn’t return messages seeking comment.
The alleged extortion occurred when Coli was president of Teamsters Joint Council 25, a labor organization that represents more than 100,000 workers in the Chicago area and northwest Indiana.
According to the federal charges, Coli accepted five payoffs, most recently a $25,000 sum April 4.
He allegedly used “fear of economic loss from threatened work stoppages and other labor unrest unless such cash payments were made,” according to the indictment, which states he also took four cash payments totaling $75,000 last year.
The studio got off the ground with the help of state and local tax breaks, as well as a series of state grants. Those grants have not been without controversy, however.
The company won $27.3 million in grants during the tenure of Gov. Pat Quinn, according to Rauner administration officials.
However, after published reports raised questions about one of the grants, officials in Rauner’s Department of Commerce and Equal Opportunity sent Pissios a letter in 2015 that requested the immediate return of $10 million of that money. The state had given the studio that grant to fund the purchase of properties near its headquarters, state records show, but the Sun-Times reported that several of those properties weren’t actually for sale.
The state received the grant money, with more than $2,000 in interest, the day after it was requested, Rauner administration officials said.
Another Chicago-based production studio has filed a federal lawsuit over the tax credits and alleged the state unfairly steered projects to Cinespace. Two companies, known collectively as Chicago Studio City, alleged the state economic development agency and two of its former officials did not afford them the chance to bid on top incoming productions snared by Cinespace.
The official calendars of Mayor Emanuel show he has continued to be in contact with the studio and its leadership. He was scheduled to meet with Pissios in his City Hall office as recently as June 15.
The mayor was scheduled to appear at the studio itself last summer, his calendar shows, giving remarks at a media event in August 2016 with Dick Wolf, producer of the popular “Chicago Fire” and its sister programs.
Emanuel also had the support of Coli during his first run for mayor at a time when he had little union support.
The Teamsters contributed $35,000 to Emanuel’s 2011 campaign, state records show, and upped their contributions to more than $134,000 during his push for a second term.
Once Emanuel was elected, a representative from the union was appointed to the mayoral transition team, and Coli was named to the exclusive group of campaign donors and community leaders in charge of planning the mayor’s first inaugural.
Coli and the Teamsters were instrumental in securing the state grant money as well as another $2.2 million from the politically connected Belmont Bank & Trust. The small Northwest Side financial institution is chaired by James Banks, one of the city’s most successful zoning lawyers and nephew of former Ald. William Banks, 36th.
Members of the bank’s board of trustees also includes former state Sen. James DeLeo, a Chicago Democratic powerbroker.
The studio also has ties with family members of well-known former Teamster boss William Hogan Jr., who led the now-disbanded Local 714. Hogan lost that spot after a scheme to move Teamsters’ jobs in Las Vegas to a nonunion employer where his brother was an official.
In the early days of the studio, its leaders counted Coli as a key ally. In a 2011 interview in the Tribune, the studio’s founder, Greek studio magnate Nick Mirkopoulos, praised Coli’s role in getting Cinespace started.
“The Teamsters — John Coli — they were more than fair, and they play the game excellent,” said Mirkopoulos, who died in 2013 and left Pissios to run the business. “We make good teammates.”
![The School City of Hammond closed the entire district Wednesday after most of its teachers called off to protest the School Board of Trustees’ Tuesday night vote to close three elementary schools and put 173 employees out-of-work. Three hundred and six of SCH’s 685 teachers “chose not to come to work,” its spokeswoman, Donna Petraits, said in an email Wednesday. As a result, it wasn’t possible for the district to open with around only 40% of its teaching staff. “The safety of our students is always our highest priority, and it was not possible to provide adequate supervision for our students. Canceling school for the day was our only option,” Petraits said. “It is […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PTB-L-HAMM-SKULS-0425-01.jpg?w=418 "The School City of Hammond closed the entire district Wednesday after most of its teachers called off to protest the School Board of Trustees’ Tuesday night vote to close three elementary schools and put 173 employees out-of-work. Three hundred and six of SCH’s 685 teachers “chose not to come to work,” its spokeswoman, Donna Petraits, said in an email Wednesday. As a result, it wasn’t possible for the district to open with around only 40% of its teaching staff. “The safety of our students is always our highest priority, and it was not possible to provide adequate supervision for our students. Canceling school for the day was our only option,” Petraits said. “It is […]")
