Supreme Court sides with ex-Chicago alderperson in corruption conviction appeal

The Supreme Court unanimously sided with a Chicago political scion in his criminal appeal Friday, agreeing an anti-corruption law barring lying to regulators only covers false statements, not misleading ones.

Patrick Daley Thompson, a member of Chicago’s most famous political dynasty, was convicted in 2022 of lying to regulators about the amount he borrowed from a now-defunct bank and already served a four-month sentence.

In a unanimous opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the justices sent the case back to a lower court for another look at Thompson’s charges, since he argues his statements were merely misleading.

“In casual conversation, people use many overlapping words to describe shady statements: false, misleading, dishonest, deceptive, literally true, and more. Only one of those words appears in the statute,” Roberts wrote.

“Section 1014 does not criminalize statements that are misleading but true. Under the statute, it is not enough that a statement is misleading. It must be ‘false,’” he continued.

The anti-corruption law Thompson was convicted of violating bars making false statements to influence certain government agencies and financial institutions. He also was convicted on tax charges that remain in place and weren’t at issue before the high court.

The ex-Chicago alderman’s legal troubles stemmed from his insistence to a loan servicer’s customer service line that he borrowed $110,000 — not the more than $269,000, including interest, the servicer claimed he owed. However, the former alderman neglected to mention two other loans, totaling $109,000.

He settled the debt with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation by agreeing to pay the principal balance of $219,000 but not the interest and was later charged with violating the anti-corruption law.

In concurring opinions, Justices Samuel Alito and Ketanji Brown Jackson noted that the instructions Thompson’s jury received only indicated that false, not misleading, statements should be weighed, meaning the jury was properly instructed.

"Thus, in my view, there is little for the Seventh Circuit to do on remand but affirm the District Court’s judgment upholding the jury’s guilty verdict,” Jackson wrote. “Whether Thompson’s statements were, in fact, false is a question for the jury— and here, one the jury has already answered.”

The justices’ decision marks the second case in as many years where the Supreme Court found federal prosecutors overstepped while cracking down on local politicians.

Last summer, they narrowed the scope of what can be considered an illegal gratuity to a government official in a case involving former Portage, Ind., Mayor James Snyder (R). Snyder in 2014 received a $13,000 check for consulting services from a garbage truck company after the town awarded lucrative contracts to the company the year before.

That ruling was expected to make it tougher to prosecute public officials for accepting bribes.

Updated at 10:59 a.m.

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