Wolfman Hired

12:37 pm, 2/20/05

Wolfman Hired
Apparently, the State of Illinois needed a very special kind of attorney in order to extort money from Illinois insurance companies.

A generous donor to Gov. Rod Blagojevich's campaign fund has won a no-bid state contract to investigate insurance brokers in Illinois.

Cherry

Chicago attorney Myron "Mike" Cherry, who individually and through his law firm gave $50,000 over the last three years to the Blagojevich campaign, is questioning large Illinois brokers and reviewing their documents, subpoenaed late last year by the Illinois Division of Insurance.

Say, isn't $50,000 the magic number Dick Mell said you supposedly have to give to get a cushy, high-paying "job" as a present from Blago? What a huge coincidence.

It's unclear how much Mr. Cherry is likely to earn from the work; the Insurance Division wouldn't comment, and he didn't return repeated phone calls.

The division confirms Mr. Cherry's compensation will come from fees paid by the firms he's investigating, but will not disclose his rate.

The senior Republican on the state Senate Insurance Committee is calling for hearings into Mr. Cherry's hiring, as well as other issues concerning the Insurance Division's probe. "Why did he get the contract and why wasn't a (request for proposals) put out?" asks Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, noting the assignment gives Mr. Cherry "the right to charge a lot of money."

A spokeswoman for Gov. Blagojevich says he's "not at all involved" in the insurance department probe. Acting Insurance Division Director Deirdre Manna says Mr. Cherry's political contributions had nothing to do with his hiring. The division didn't bid the work competitively in order to speed up the probe "because of the potential damage to Illinois consumers" from the practices under investigation, she says.

It might be easier to figure out how many employees the state has taken on board who haven't given money to Blagojevich's campaign, but this is still a classic. "It was an emergency! An insurance emergency!"

The Insurance Division launched its probe last year after New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer sued Marsh & McLennan Cos., the world's largest commercial broker, alleging the company rigged insurance bids to steer business to insurers that paid Marsh the highest commissions.

What do we have an Attorney General for, then? Is Lisa Madigan still too busy... wait for it ...investigating Blagojevich's hiring practices?

Unclear, too, is Mr. Cherry's level of experience in insurance. He's best known as a commercial litigator and Democratic Party fund-raiser.

"The meetings we've had with (Mr. Cherry), he didn't seem to be very knowledgeable," says Richard Price, vice-chairman of Chicago-based Mesirow Financial Holdings Inc.'s insurance brokerage, which was questioned by Mr. Cherry over two separate days for a total of four hours in connection with the investigation.

Ms. Manna says the department wanted an industry outsider to handle the probe and chose Mr. Cherry for "his experience in investigating and litigating complex business transactions."

As for the fees for Mr. Cherry's time, Mesirow's Mr. Price says: "We've been advised that a bill is coming. We want to see what it looks like, but I don't think I'll be pleasantly surprised."

This sounds vaguely like a protection racket.

Update: A reader sends in a "better" picture of Cherry:


No one can parody Illinois better than it parodies itself.