Worth Township trustee pleads guilty, agrees to cooperate with federal prosecutors

A Worth Township trustee with ties to several Illinois politicians through his commercial printing business admitted to a federal magistrate judge Monday that he failed to file tax returns in 2017 and 2018 despite making hundreds of thousands of dollars those years.

Richard J. Lewandowski, 61, of Palos Heights, also agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors. He was first charged in early January.

The case against Lewandowski is the first public corruption shoe to drop in 2021 following a flurry of cases in 2020. Though it’s unclear exactly how Lewandowski fits into that puzzle, the prosecutor handling his case has handled several defendants caught up in an investigation into the politically connected red-light camera company SafeSpeed.

That investigation has brought scrutiny to former Worth Township Supervisor John O’Sullivan, who worked as a sales consultant for SafeSpeed.

Neither O’Sullivan nor SafeSpeed has been charged with wrongdoing. A former SafeSpeed partner, Omar Maani, was charged last year with a bribery conspiracy and struck what’s known as a deferred-prosecution agreement. However, SafeSpeed has portrayed Maani as a rogue operator who long ago left the firm.

Lewandowski is president of Breaker Press Co., records show. The commercial printer promotes itself online as a third-generation family company founded in the 1970s that has become “a well-known name in the political and corporate printing industry.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Stetler told U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez that Lewandowski made $370,342 in 2018 and $213,516 in 2017 but failed to file his tax returns. That failure cost the IRS $52,365 and the Illinois Department of Revenue $10,350, the prosecutor said.

“I did not file my taxes on time,” Lewandowski told the judge before he pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor tax count. “And I snowballed from one year to another and ended up really late on the one year I’m being charged with.”

Lewandowski’s 18-page plea agreement also confirms that he has agreed to “fully and truthfully cooperate in any matter” in which he is called upon by prosecutors. If he does so, prosecutors have agreed to recommend a lighter sentence. Absent that cooperation, Lewandowski faces a likely prison sentence of 10 months to a year.