The daughter of embattled state Sen. Martin Sandoval received more than $52,000 in political donations in late 2017 and 2018 from individuals and companies whose names have recently surfaced as part of an ongoing, wide-ranging federal investigation into public corruption.
A Chicago Tribune review of the campaign fund created for Angie Sandoval’s unsuccessful Cook County Board candidacy shows that more than a dozen of her donors — individuals and companies — were named in federal search warrants executed in September at Sen. Sandoval’s Capitol office and the village halls in west suburban McCook and Lyons. Both towns are in Sandoval’s Senate district.
Among the items federal agents removed from the office were December 2017 spreadsheets from Friends of Martin Sandoval, the senator’s campaign fund. The fund’s single largest receipt or expenditure from that period was a $55,000 transfer to his daughter’s campaign, state campaign finance records show.
Angie Sandoval, who did not respond to requests for comment, was not named in the search warrant for her father’s Springfield office. Nor has her name appeared in any of the other documents that have been made public in the case. Neither she, her father nor any of the other people named in the documents have been charged with any wrongdoing in the investigation.
As part of the sprawling probe, investigators are looking into allegations that Sen. Sandoval, a Chicago Democrat, used his official position to steer business to at least one company in exchange for kickbacks, a source with knowledge of the investigation told the Tribune.
Sandoval stepped down as chairman of the influential Senate Transportation Committee on Oct. 11, the same day Senate President John Cullerton’s office released an unredacted copy of the search warrant for Sandoval’s statehouse confines. Sandoval has not responded to repeated requests for comment.
Angie Sandoval was promoted earlier this year to senior account representative with ComEd, which has also been drawn into the probe. The search warrant for her father’s office shows investigators sought information related to ComEd, parent company Exelon and four unnamed Exelon officials. Exelon and ComEd disclosed in a regulatory filing earlier this month that the companies have been subpoenaed for “communications” between the companies and Sen. Sandoval.
Angie Sandoval opened her campaign fund in late November 2017 and within a month, she’d raised more than $270,000. Donations included $10,000 from McCook Mayor and Cook County Commissioner Jeffrey Tobolski and $4,000 from businessman Vahooman “Shadow” Mirkhaef, both of whom are named in the search warrants executed at Sandoval’s office and McCook Village Hall.
Tobolski did not respond to requests for comment. Mirkhaef’s attorney, Sergio Acosta, declined to comment on the contribution to Angie Sandoval’s campaign and whether Martin Sandoval approached Mirkhaef about contributing to his daughter’s campaign.
Angie Sandoval also raised more than $15,000 in December 2017 from companies and individuals tied to materials magnate Michael Vondra, a longtime supporter of her father who is named in the search warrants for his office and Lyons Village Hall.
In the closing weeks of the County Board primary race, a trio of Vondra-connected companies — Bluff City Materials, Southwind RAS and Reliable Asphalt — each kicked in another $6,250, for a combined $18,750. Altogether, Vondra, his businesses and his associates gave Angie Sandoval more than $34,000.
Vondra has not responded to numerous requests for comment since the Sept. 24 raid on Sandoval’s offices at the Capitol. The same day, federal agents also were present at Bluff City, one of a network of businesses that operate out of a Bartlett industrial park owned in part by Vondra and John Harris, former chief of staff to imprisoned ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, through a limited liability company. Harris also is named in the warrants and gave to Angie Sandoval’s campaign.
The donations from Reliable and Bluff City caught the eye of Angie Sandoval’s primary opponent, now-Cook County Commissioner Alma Anaya, a former aide to Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, who gave up the County Board seat to launch a successful 2018 run for Congress.
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Anaya, who won the race by a 14-point margin despite raising far less money, announced during the campaign that she had filed a complaint against Angie Sandoval with the Cook County Board of Ethics.
The complaint alleged that Angie Sandoval violated a county ethics provision that prohibits candidates from accepting contributions of more than $750 in non-election years and $1,500 in election years from those who have done business with the county. Reliable Asphalt, which gave Angie Sandoval $1,250 in December 2017 and $6,250 in March 2018, was involved in a joint venture that had a $160,000 county contract in 2013, records show.
The ethics board did not respond to requests for comment on the status of the complaint. Anaya did not return phone messages left at her office or an email seeking comment.
Anaya, who raised nearly $269,000 in the run-up to the primary and another $121,000 since, has her own powerful backers. Garcia, a rival of the now-defunct Hispanic Democratic Organization that helped Martin Sandoval win his first election to the Senate in 2002, has given her campaign more than $96,000 , while House Speaker Michael Madigan’s 13th Ward organization has given her nearly $26,000. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle kicked in $6,000. Madigan and Preckwinkle lead the state and county Democratic Party, respectively.
Others named in the recent federal warrants who contributed to Angie Sandoval’s campaign fund included Rosemont engineering firm Mackie Consultants, which gave $5,000; Berwyn Ald. Cesar Santoy, who together with two of his companies gave $3,500; and video gambling company Gold Rush Amusements, which gave $1,000 in June 2018, three months after she was defeated by Anaya.
Representatives of Mackie Consultants did not respond to a request for comment.
Santoy resigned from the board of the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority on Oct. 11 after the Sandoval warrant, that included his name, was made public and Gov. J.B. Pritzker publicly called for him to step down. Messages left with Santoy’s attorney on Thursday were not returned.
Gold Rush is owned by Rick Heidner, who is named along with the company in the Sandoval and McCook warrants. Heidner’s plans to open a horse racing track and casino in Tinley Park were knocked off course after the Tribune reported on his long-standing business ties to a banking family whose financial dealings with the mob contributed to the demise of a proposed Rosemont casino in the early 2000s. Gold Rush and Heidner did not respond to a request for comment on the contribution to Angie Sandoval.
In all, roughly $500,000 of the more than $620,000 Angie Sandoval’s campaign raised in its 11-month existence came from individuals, businesses and political committees that also have backed her father’s campaigns. The vast majority of those contributors have not been tied to the federal investigation.
During that election cycle, there was a $55,400 limit on contributions from one campaign fund to another. On Dec. 2, 2017, the same day she received $55,000 from her father’s campaign, Angie Sandoval received $55,000 from one of Sen. Antonio Munoz’s campaign funds. Like Martin Sandoval, Munoz came up through the Hispanic Democratic Organization, a patronage army from the era of Mayor Richard M. Daley.
Later that same month, Martin Sandoval transferred a total of $55,000 from his campaign fund to three funds controlled by Munoz: $27,000 to Munoz’s state Senate campaign fund, $14,500 to Tony Munoz for State Central Committeeman and $13,500 to the 12th Ward Regular Democratic Organization, Munoz’s ward committeeman fund.
Six days before the March 2018 primary, Munoz’s state central committee and ward campaign funds each gave Angie Sandoval’s campaign $15,000.
Munoz, through a campaign spokesman, said he has known Angie Sandoval her whole life, and didn’t recall any conversations about his campaign fund being repaid by Sandoval.
In the closing weeks of the March 2018 primary, Angie Sandoval received a loan of $55,400 from Senate President John Cullerton’s campaign fund. When Sandoval closed her fund in October 2018, the loan was listed as an outstanding debt, state campaign finance records show. The loan has not been repaid, Senate Democratic political staff confirmed.
Cullerton, whose name has not been connected to the federal probe, could not be reached for comment.
dpetrella@chicagotribune.com
jmunks@chicagotribune.com
