Feds say ex-Board of Review worker should get up to 2.5 years in prison for taking bribes for tax breaks

Federal prosecutors say a former longtime Cook County Board of Review worker should be sentenced to up to two-and-a-half years in prison for accepting $43,000 in cash to help lower property taxes, a move that put “salt in the wound” of honest taxpayers.

But a defense attorney for Danilo “Danny B” Barjaktarevic asked U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman to sentence him to probation instead, arguing he’s already lost his job, will lose his pension, brought shame to his name and spent hours answering questions from the FBI.

Coleman is set to sentence Barjaktarevic on Jan. 24.

Barjaktarevic pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge in September, more than a year after the Chicago Sun-Times revealed he’d been under investigation by the FBI for lowering property assessments in exchange for cash.

Assessments are a key factor in calculating property tax bills.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Peabody wrote in a court memo Tuesday that, after he was confronted by the FBI, Barjaktarevic admitted that he “took $43,000 … in return for promising to help reduce the property taxes for … 25 properties … I did not share the money with anyone else.”

Peabody wrote that Barjaktarevic also admitted he once took $1,500 from someone for help with property taxes but owed $500 back because he couldn’t perform part of the request. The prosecutor wrote that a search of Barjaktarevic’s cellphone further revealed a $1,000 payment from one taxpayer in January 2021 and a $1,500 “putative payment” from another in Spring 2021.

Defense attorney Matthew McQuaid wrote in a separate memo that Barjaktarevic “began cooperating with the government from the earliest moments of the investigation.” However, it did not lead to a cooperation deal.

Barjaktarevic offered to have property assessments lowered at a rate of $2,000 for every commercial property and $1,000 for every residential property.

A 45-page FBI affidavit obtained by the Sun-Times showed that Barjaktarevic claimed he was “just the middle guy” and that certain colleagues had factored the cash he was collecting into vacation plans.

But Peabody argued that was just a story Barjaktarevic spun “in an apparent attempt to justify the high cost of his purported services.”

“There was nothing subtle or ambiguous about [Barjaktarevic]’s actions,” Peabody wrote. “He made clear … these would be illicit bribes, even accepting bulk cash payments in a parking lot.”