U.S. alleges huge fraud in city minority pacts
2 in connected Duff family indicted in set-aside scam
By Matt O'Connor and Ray Gibson
Tribune staff reporters

September 26, 2003

The politically connected Duff family used its matriarch and a trusted black associate to pose as fronts for phony women- and minority-owned businesses in a massive, dozen-year fraud that garnered more than $100 million in contracts from the city of Chicago, a federal indictment charged Thursday.

Among those charged were James M. Duff, who concealed his role as the decision-maker in the family business interests; his mother, Patricia Duff, who falsely claimed to run the family janitorial firm, Windy City Maintenance Inc.; and William E. Stratton, a family confidant and African-American who posed as boss of Remedial Environmental Manpower Inc., another Duff-run business that won a lucrative subcontract to operate the city's blue bag recycling program, prosecutors alleged.

Lawyers for the two Duffs and Stratton said their clients would plead not guilty and fight the charges.

The charges follow a four-year investigation launched after a 1999 Tribune story alleged Windy City Maintenance was a fraudulent women's business enterprise and questioned whether Stratton really ran R.E.M., which purported to be a minority-owned business.