City laborer used sick time to cover for time spent in MCC after drug arrest, inspector general says

A city sanitation laborer was accused Friday of taking two sick days and being AWOL for another four while actually being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on federal drug charges.

The Streets and Sanitation laborer was fired and placed on the “do-not-rehire” list for concealing his drug arrest.

Inspector General Joe Ferguson’s third-quarter report was dominated by details of an alleged police cover-up of a drinking-and-driving incident that led to former Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson’s firing.

The report also included the usual sordid array of corruption and wrongdoing by other city employees:

• A truck driver for the Department of Water Management was “verbally abusive and used misogynistic and racist slurs” when a black female security guard asked the driver to present a city ID to enter a worksite. The driver responded to what Ferguson called a “legitimate request” by becoming “irate,” calling the woman a “black b----” and using other “racist and highly offensive comments.”

Ferguson recommended the driver be discharged, but the Law Department overruled him, and he was suspended for 10 days.

Three years ago, a shake-up triggered by racist, sexist and homophobic emails swept out then-Water Management Commissioner Barrett Murphy and his top deputies William Bresnahan and Paul Hansen, brother of former Ald. Bernard Hansen (44th).

• Ten employees assigned to the Department of Fleet and Facilities Management were accused of stealing scrap copper wire from a branch library, loading it into the personal truck of one of the employees and driving it to a suburban scrap yard, where it was re-sold for a $4,445 profit. The foreman of electrical mechanics and an electrician resigned to avoid being fired. The truck driver was fired. Seven other employees were suspended for as long as 10 days.

• A head library clerk resigned after being accused of stealing more than $6,200 in cash collected through fines and fees over a two-month period after taking the lock box home. The clerk used the cash for personal and household expenses. The branch manager who “inaccurately represented … that the money was in the branch safe, when, in fact, the branch manager did not know the money’s whereabouts” was suspended for three days.

• A building inspector resigned to avoid being fired after being accused of inspecting properties, then “referring property owners to the inspector’s business associates for permitting and construction work to cure the violations.”

• A sanitation laborer was suspended for 10 days for responding to an earlier disciplinary suspension by threatening violence in the workplace. Specifically, the laborer was accused of saying, “When I come back on Monday, ‘Pop! Pop! Pop!’” The Chicago Police Department was notified of the threat, which wasn’t carried out.

• Another Streets and Sanitation laborer resigned to avoid being fired after being accused of forging pay stubs and wage verification forms to qualify for $22,329 in child care assistance.

• An landside operations manager at O’Hare Airport retired before being fired after flashing a decommissioned Department of Aviation police star during a road rage incident.

• An Aviation Department painter made “unwelcome, discourteous sexual comments and gestures” toward a contractor’s employee. The contractor’s employee complained to a foreman, but the supervisor failed to report the inappropriate conduct to the Department of Human Resources. Neither employee was disciplined.