Not that surprising, really. Only would become surprising if anything ever came of it, especially since Mayor Daley is no longer mayor.
In the annals of Daley administration scandals, the name Duff still ranks high.
The politically connected Duff family — campaign supporters of Mayor Daley — won about $100 million in city business, in part through what prosecutors said were bogus claims that they deserved breaks that are set aside for women-owned businesses. Those claims unraveled as James M. Duff pleaded guilty in 2005 to fraud and racketeering, among 33 federal charges.
Daley knew the Duffs, went to their parties, benefitted from their campaign fund-raisers — but downplayed his ties to the family, which, during his tenure, got city cleanup and janitorial work from City Hall at Taste of Chicago, O’Hare Airport and the Harold Washington Library Center,among other lucrative city business.
For anyone keeping score, newly released FBI files show that agents who were keeping tabs on the late John F. “Jack” Duff Jr. — the family patriarch who was an ex-con, disgraced union boss and self-described pal of the late Chicago mob boss Anthony Accardo — had a source who told them “it was common knowledge that Jack Duff Jr. and Mayor Daley were close friends and that Jack Duff Jr. had direct access to the mayor.”
The FBI files on Jack Duff, who died in 2008 at 82, were released to the Better Government Association in response to a federal Freedom of Information Act request. That law allows the release of certain law enforcement files after a person’s death.
(click here to continue reading Mayor Daley’s name turns up in FBI files on embezzler John F. Duff Jr. – Chicago Sun-Times.)