Chicago Tribune FBI agents who raided the village hall in southwest suburban Lyons last month seized a plethora of evidence, including information on a clout-heavy red light camera company, a popular brewery, an embattled video gaming magnate and a construction magnate who owns a huge quarry in town, records show.
On the day of the Sept. 26 raid, Lyons was also served with a federal grand jury subpoena demanding a wide range of records on a hotel and resort backed by Mayor Christopher Getty, the home security system at Getty’s residence and the entire Democratic Organization of Lyons Township — headed by state Sen. Steven Landek.
The documents, released by Lyons after business hours on Tuesday, were the latest public disclosure in a sprawling federal political corruption investigation that has rocked Springfield and Chicago’s near southwestern suburbs, the traditional power base of Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan.
The investigation, which records show has been going on behind the scenes since at least 2017, exploded in the public eye on Sept. 24, when the FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents carried out search warrants at the offices of state Sen. Martin Sandoval in the Capitol and in west suburban Cicero.
So far, no one has been criminally charged in the ongoing probe.
Lyons officials had initially issued a blanket denial of open records requests from the news media, claiming federal investigators had asked that no information be released about the warrant. But the town acquiesced after being sued by several media outlets.
The subpoena and search warrant, totaling a combined nine pages, show that many of the records sought by the FBI in Lyons mirrored what was seized in a simultaneous raid in the tiny neighboring suburb of McCook, as well as the search two days earlier of Sandoval’s office in Springfield.