When the Chicago Sun-Times was about to go bankrupt from falling subscriptions and reader complaints, the newspaper publicized that it was up for sale to the highest bidder.
Well, the highest bidder turned out to be a conglomerate organized by the late James Tyree, according to Crains Chicago Business, that included two gambling and waste industry honchos, both controversial and one with ties to the Chicago Mob.
Former Casino Owner Kevin Flynn and dirt-hauler Ed Heila became the largest owners of the newspaper, paying $5 million in 2009 each for a 20 percent stake in the ownership of the publication.
According to Crains Chicago Business:
Mr. Flynn, 43, a repo man today, made news in 2001 when the Illinois Gaming Board rejected his bid to launch a Rosemont casino, saying he and his father, Donald, lied to the panel and let investors with mob ties into the deal. Mr. Heil, 66, who made his fortune in the 1980s on the sale of a waste-disposal business, has taken flak for being a politically connected DuPage County contractor.
Immediately after Flynn and Heil became owners, the newspaper started to fire union workers, many who fought against mob-influence in the newspaper industry. Months later, 400 union printers were fired and the newspaper cut a deal with the devil to have their newspaper published by the rival Chicago Tribune.
There were no headlines in either paper about how the Tribune was working with a mobbed-up company, nor the fact that the union-busting Tribune was glad to see the printer’s union workers laid-off to send a signal to their own employees that being a union member was hazardous to their careers.
Crains reported:
Mr. Flynn, the son of former Waste Management Inc. executive Donald Flynn, started his career innocuously enough, developing a playground company called Discovery Zone Inc. with his father.
In 1996, he switched gears to launch Blue Chip Casino in Michigan City, Ind., and sold it in 1999 to Boyd Gaming Corp. for $273.5 million. Later, his failed Rosemont casino bid spawned a slew of litigation. Today he mainly runs a Chicago-based repossession firm, Renovo Services LLC.
Mr. Flynn, who declines to comment on his casino business and Sun-Times' current operations, says Mr. Tyree persuaded him to invest in the company by inviting him out to breakfast and asking if he'd consider joining in if “30 things happened.” In the following weeks, Mr. Tyree called him with updates, checking items off that list.
Crains wrote about Heil:
Mr. Heil built up a dumping, demolition and road construction company that his parents founded. He sold the dumping segment to Browning-Ferris Industries Inc. in the mid-1980s, reportedly for $62.5 million.
Though he is now semi-retired, his longtime penchant for contributing to politicians in places where his Plainfield-based company, now called E. F. Heil LLC, does government work still attracts attention.
Mr. Heil raised eyebrows when he contributed $50,000 last year to the Illinois House race of a DuPage County board member just before receiving a $23,200 contract from the county. Mr. Heil, who defended his donation at the time, declines to comment.
These are stories you won’t read in the Chicago Sun-Times because the newspaper is notorious for its hypocrisies. They can dish it out but they can’t take it. They claim to uncover corruption but their employees swallow hard not to complain about the hypocrisies that are the newspaper’s ownership.
Mob ties at the Chicago Sun-Times.
Mike Royko would be rolling in his grave right now knowing that a newspaper that showcased his tough columns hammering the mob has now laid down with the fish.
At least the Crains Chicago Business has the ethics and courage to expose the Chicago Sun-Times hypocrisy. Click here to read the story (subscription to Crains required).
-- BT
I cancelled my subscription a long time ago when hypocrisy became their newspaper policy. They have so many scandals its amazing they continue to publish. They have no credibility. Everyone of their publishers has been a criminal, Black, Murdoch and the rest have been low-lifes.
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