Former Ald. Ed Vrdolyak Ordered To Report To Prison By End Of Month

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Former Chicago Ald. Ed Vrdolyak must report to prison by the end of the month, a court ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge Robert M. Dow ordered that Vrdolyak must report to the FMC Rochester prison in Rochester, Minnesota by noon on Tuesday, Nov. 30.

The judge reported having had multiple email and telephone conversations with prison officials, who reported their institution – a medical facility with 24-hour nursing care on all floors and access to the Mayo Clinic – can accept the 83-year-old Vrdolyak and provide any medical care he may need.

Vrdolyak was sentenced to 18 months in prison on in December of last year on federal tax evasion charges related to millions of dollars in payments he and a friend received from the state's $9 billion settlement with tobacco companies.

Vrdolyak pleaded guilty in 2019 to seeking to help another lawyer to evade paying about $800,000 in income taxes. The scheme was part of a plan to siphon off millions of dollars in legal fees stemming from the tobacco settlement, even though he did no legal work on the case.

At the time he sentenced Vrdolyak, Judge Dow said he would not sent the former alderman to prison "during COVID."

Vrdolyak did a 10-month stint in federal prison in 2011 in a $1.5 million real estate kickback scheme. In the mid-1980s, he led an aldermanic bloc staunchly opposed to Chicago's first Black mayor, Harold Washington, and later focused on his law practice.

(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)