Former Markham Mayor David Webb Jr. was sentenced Tuesday to two years in federal prison for taking nearly $300,000 in bribes, including from one developer who left coffee cups stuffed with cash in the mayor’s office.
The sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman capped an unusual public corruption case that began when Webb himself went to federal authorities and admitted he was on the take. His testimony later led to indictments against two contractors and their companies.
In announcing the sentence, which was below the 41/2 years requested by prosecutors, Gettleman acknowledged Webb’s extraordinary cooperation and said he appreciated that the mayor had a significant gambling addiction at the time he was secretly taking money.
But the judge said he still found it “baffling” that Webb would betray the citizens of Markham in such a profound way, particularly given their widespread support of him and many of the projects and improvements he initiated.
“They should be building statues to you, not cells,” Gettleman said to Webb, who participated in the hearing via videoconference. “This wasn’t a one-time thing, where it was, ‘I’m desperate, I’m behind in my debt to the casino’ or whatever. It was your idea to take these bribes to begin with.”
Gettleman also said that a sentence of home confinement, as suggested by Webb’s attorneys, would not deter other officials from taking bribes in a state and federal district that has such a long history of public corruption.
“We’ve seen corrupt judges, we’ve seen corrupt prosecutors, corrupt public officials of every sort,” Gettleman said. “We want to make sure that anybody who is tempted to take a bribe … there has to be a message sent.”
Before he was sentenced, Webb, 73, apologized to the court and the citizens he’d served, saying, “I have always tried to live my life with the word of God. I did the best I could.”
“I know I let myself down, I let the people down, the ones that loved me the most and the people of Markham,” said Webb, who stands to lose his public pension now that he’s been sentenced.
First elected to lead the small suburb of about 12,000 residents in 2001, Webb stepped down in 2017 and later pleaded guilty to “honest services” wire fraud and the filing of a false tax return.
As part of his deal with prosecutors, Webb admitted he took a combined $300,000 from contractors doing business with the city beginning in 2008. Federal guidelines called for Webb to be sentenced to up to nine years in prison, but prosecutors cut him a significant break because of his cooperation, which included testimony at the criminal trials of two developers.
Webb’s testimony in 2019 led to the conviction of contractor Michael Jarigese, who paid nearly $100,000 to Webb to secure lucrative contracts for his business, Tower Construction. Webb told jurors that Jarigese had passed a number of bribes in coffee cups filled with cash during meetings in Webb’s City Hall office.
“He would call me, come by my office,” Webb said. “He would stop by with a coffee cup with money in it. … I would set it on the floor till no one was there, and then I’d take it and put it in my pocket.”
Webb said Jarigese gave him cash in that way “four or five times,” with the largest amount being $2,500. He said he spent the money on “personal things,” including gambling trips to nearby casinos.
Jarigese was sentenced last year to 41 months in prison.
Also charged as a result of Webb’s cooperation was Thomas Summers, owner of Alsterda Cartage and Construction. At trial, Webb testified Summers paid a total of $169,015 in cash to Webb and checks to KAT Remodeling, a shell company that Webb set up in his children’s names that he allegedly used to funnel bribes. In some cases, Summers wrote in memo lines on the checks words such as “kitchen,” “office” or “Ford Truck” to make the payments seem legitimate.
Summers was convicted of lying to the FBI, but the jury acquitted him of the bribery charges.
In asking for home confinement, Webb’s attorneys, Eric Pruitt and Theodore Poulos, wrote in a recent court filing that Webb’s corruption was in large part due to his out-of-control gambling, which at the time included daily excursions to casinos in Indiana where spend up to $3,000 at slot machines.
“I was so stupid and foolish not to recognize what the gambling habit I created was doing to me,” Webb wrote in a letter to the judge that was included in the filing.
Webb estimated he lost about $200,000 before seeking help for his addiction in 2017.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
