‘The end of an era': Top Madigan prosecutor known for bringing blockbuster mob, corruption cases, stepping down

Yahoo

14-03-2025

Ailing Chicago mobster Frank 'The German' Schweihs was all scowls in June 2018 when he was pushed into a federal courtroom in a wheelchair for a hearing in his racketeering case and two young federal prosecutors he'd never seen before were staring back at him.
The feared Outfit hit man first barked a homophobic remark at one of them, Markus Funk, and said, 'You makin' eyes at me?' Then Schweihs glared at Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu, who is Sikh and wears a turban. 'What are we, in some kind of foreign country?' he cracked to his lawyer loud enough for the entire courtroom to hear.
If Bhachu was taken aback by the comment, he didn't show it, Funk recalled in an interview this week. He kept his arms crossed and remained expressionless, and the hearing went forward without missing a beat.
'Schweihs was trying to get under Amar's skin and got no reaction at all,' Funk told the Tribune.
The long-forgotten episode may have been a blip in one of the biggest organized crime prosecutions in Chicago's history, but it was also a harbinger of Bhachu's unflappable style that would go on to serve him well as he rose through the ranks of the city's storied U.S. attorney's office.
Known as a dogged but fair litigator, Bhachu learned from Outfit-busting legends like Gary Shapiro and Mitchell Mars before eventually taking over the Public Corruption and Organized Crime Section, leading a series of bombshell investigations into mobsters, lobbyists, corporate CEOs and crooked politicians that culminated with the conviction last month of former House Speaker Michael Madigan.
That landmark case, it turns out, will be Bhachu's last.
A 22-year-veteran prosecutor, Bhachu will step down from the U.S. attorney's office at the end of the day Friday, marking the end of a remarkable run under six different U.S. attorneys and acting bosses, from Patrick Fitzgerald to Morris Pasqual.
No reason for Bhachu's departure was given, though whispers that he might leave after the Madigan case was over began circulating at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse last year, well before the Trump administration last month offered a buyout to federal employees.
The timing came as a surprise to many, however, given that Madigan's case, which ended in a split verdict on Feb. 12, still has a ways to go. A forfeiture hearing has been set for June, and barring a successful appeal or decision to retry the deadlocked counts, a sentencing hearing will likely be slated further down the road.
It also leaves the U.S. attorney's office without yet another veteran prosecutor at a time when the office is struggling with attrition, morale and productivity issues, along with unprecedented uncertainty coming out of Washington. Several insiders who spoke to the Tribune on the condition of anonymity said that of all the recent departures, Bhachu's stings the most.
In a written statement, Pasqual, who has been Chicago's acting U.S. attorney since 2023, said Bhachu has served 'with distinction' and 'made our office better each and every day.'
'I cannot thank Amar enough for his unwavering, humble leadership and wise counsel over the past 21 years, and I wish him the best going forward,' Pasqual said.
Earlier this week, Pasqual appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker, a veteran of the Madigan trial as well as the 2023 case against former Ald. Edward Burke, as Bhachu's replacement.
Regardless of his reasons for leaving, Bhachu had a fascinating final act. In January, he found himself face-to-face with Madigan, once the most powerful politician in the state, for a cross-examination for the ages.
'That's you laughing, sir, isn't it?' Bhachu asked Madigan after playing a now-infamous wiretapped recording where the former speaker chuckled about his friends making out 'like bandits.'
Randall Samborn, a former federal prosecutor who served as chief spokesman for former U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, said Bhachu 'represented a direct link' to the influence of mentors like Mars and Shapiro, particularly when it comes to mob and public corruption cases.
'His departure marks a generational divide from their combined legacy that stretches back a half-century,' Samborn said. 'Former prosecutors often regale the 'Days of the Giants,' but this might also be the end of an era.'
Funk, who also worked under Mars and helped bring Bhachu over to the organized crime team back in the mid-2000s, said Bhachu quickly earned a reputation of his own for 'putting together big, sophisticated cases without fear or favor.'
'If I were a criminal and I knew I did something bad, the last person I would want to see show up in court on my case is Amar Bhachu,' said Funk, now a partner at Perkins Coie in Denver.
Meteoric rise
Bhachu, 53, was born in England and his family moved first to Canada and eventually to the U.S. when he was in grade school. His father, a mechanical engineer, and his mother, a trained midwife, were originally from Kenya. They settled on the East Coast, where Bhachu's father had a lengthy career with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Bhachu graduated from Georgetown University Law School in 1996 and moved to Chicago soon after, working in private practice before joining the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago in 2003.
Like most young assistant U.S. attorneys in the office, Bhachu was first assigned to a general crimes unit, prosecuting a range of cases from narcotics to money laundering.
One of his first cases to make news involved Adnan Aldarawsheh, of Willow Springs, a station manager for Royal Jordanian Airlines at O'Hare International Airport who helped run an illegal drug ring, using his position with the airline to help smuggle cash proceeds.
Bhachu did a significant stint in what used to be called the Narcotics and Gang Section before he was tasked to the public corruption unit. He was incredibly productive even in the gung-ho era of the U.S. attorney's office in the mid-2000s. Court records show in 2004 alone, Bhachu filed 20 new criminal cases involving 37 named defendants.
It was in those early days that Bhachu, despite his rather gruff demeanor in court, established himself as one of the office's premier pranksters, his former colleagues said, pulling stunts that might have alarmed bosses in today's world but in those days brought a sense of camaraderie to an office that has sky-high burnout potential.
Jokes aside, however, Bhachu was also known for a quiet work ethic, much like his mentor, Mitch Mars, who died abruptly of cancer at age 55 after winning convictions in the landmark Family Secrets trial. Bhachu also adopted Mars' rather old-school recordkeeping, according to colleagues who spoke to the Tribune.
Thick piles of papers were constantly growing in his office, at times making it difficult to squeeze in an extra chair. Adding to the throwback atmosphere were photos of some of Bhachu's more well-known targets tacked to the office walls, including Outfit bosses Joey 'The Clown' Lombardo and Frank 'The Breeze' Calabrese.
He also keeps a photo of Mars taken after the Family Secrets verdict, which no one knew at the time would be Mars' last time in court.
As he made his name in the office, Bhachu was among a group of hardworking assistants who were known to burn the late-night oil, staying in the office until midnight some nights working on cases, several former colleagues told the Tribune.
One of them was Andrew Boutros, who like Bhachu was an up-and-comer in the office in the late 2000s — and a first-generation immigrant. He said Bhachu would sometimes walk past his office on the fifth floor of the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago's federal courthouse and see his light on and stop in for a chat.
'We'd just be bouncing ideas off each other, talking about our cases and legal issues,' said Boutros, who is now under consideration to become the U.S. attorney in Chicago. 'Amar has a tremendous work ethic.'
That late-night ethos prevailed throughout Bhachu's tenure at the U.S. attorney's office. Even when the COVID era relaxed rules on being downtown, he would often be seen coming back into the courthouse with a coffee in hand long after his colleagues had punched out for the day.
'You always know Amar is going to cross the 't's and triple-dot every 'i,'' said longtime criminal defense attorney Joseph Lopez, who has represented a number of reputed mobsters and others prosecuted by Bhachu. 'He's very thorough. And he's a hammer. But he's a true believer. He believes he's protecting society through the law and doing what's best on behalf of the United States.'
Lopez said that reputation was particularly well-known among underworld figures.
'I think when they found out he was leaving they probably had a party,' Lopez said.
Targeting organized crime
By far the biggest mob case Bhachu participated in was the landmark Family Secrets trial in 2007, which led to life sentences for several Chicago gangsters, including Lombardo, Calabrese, and James Marcello. The case was built on the turncoat testimony of Calabrese's brother, Nicholas, who admitted killing 14 people for the Outfit over the course of more than two decades.
Bhachu had been set to take part in the case against Schweihs, which was severed from the other Family Secrets defendants due to Schweihs's ill health. But after the German's racist outburst in 2008, Bhachu never saw him again, as Schweihs died of cancer in a jail hospital in July 2008.
But other blockbuster cases followed. In 2010, Bhachu led the prosecution of Cicero mob boss Michael 'The Large Guy' Sarno, Outlaw biker Mark Polchan and three others for running a lucrative illegal video poker racket, pulling off a string of armed robberies and planting a pipe bomb in front of a rival business cutting into their gambling turf.
Soon after the Sarno case ended, Bhachu found himself with a stunning opportunity to bring down Steve Mandell, an ex-Chicago cop and mob-connected hit man who'd been a thorn in the side of law enforcement for years.
In 2012, the FBI learned that Mandell was plotting to set up a torture and killing chamber in a Northwest Side storefront as part of a plot to kidnap, torture and dismember Chicago businessmen and steal their property and cash. One of his first targets was Steven Campbell, a real estate magnate Mandell jokingly referred to as 'Soupy,' who owned two dozen properties along Ogden Avenue and dealt largely in cash.
The scheme was foiled with the help of undercover informant George Michael, a real estate mogul and former banker who was secretly recording for the FBI when Mandell introduced himself at a lunch at La Scarola on Grand Avenue and started talking about his plans.
During Mandell's 2013 sentencing hearing, Bhachu said Mandell's attention to detail, from a 'circular saw to take the big bones out of Mr. Campbell's body' to 'goggles so blood splatter wouldn't hit him in the face,' made it clear that he'd participated in violent abductions before.
'I think the thing that really strikes one from listening to all the evidence in this case is the fact that (Mandell) actually takes pleasure — he takes pleasure — from hurting people,' Bhachu said. 'He likes it.'
Michael told the Tribune this week that Bhachu always seemed to have a sense of humor even in the most tense and macabre situations. He chuckled as he recalled meetings in Bhachu's office where the prosecutor jumped up onto his desk to close the blinds on the tall windows.
And he said he's still grateful to this day that Bhachu protected him when Mandell was allegedly trying to arrange Michael's murder from inside the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where Mandell was with street gang members awaiting trial. Law enforcement wired up Michael and caught a known gang member talking about Mandell's overtures.
'I knew if you were always telling Amar the truth, you had a friend,' Michael said. 'If you lied, you just lost your best friend. And he knew the difference.'
Mandell was convicted of the grisly scheme to kidnap and murder Campbell and is serving life in prison.
Enduring criticism
While Bhachu earned the respect of most of the defense lawyers he battled in court, he also was criticized at times for taking an expansive and aggressive approach to federal fraud and bribery statutes, and for giving deals to cooperators who helped bring cases.
By far the loudest criticism came in the U.S. attorney's office's handling of former Ald. Daniel Solis, who agreed to go undercover for the FBI after being confronted with his own corrupt deeds and made secret recordings of both Burke and Madigan that were instrumental in bringing down two of the most powerful Democratic politicians in Chicago history.
Solis was given an unprecedented deferred prosecution deal for his efforts that will leave him without a felony conviction and collecting a six-figure city pension despite having admitted to taking bribes in his official capacity as Zoning Committee chairman.
Some cried foul, including then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot, who said she was 'deeply offended' by the deal, as well as Solis' replacement as 25th Ward alderman, Byron Sigcho-Lopez, who asked U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood to consider Solis' 'rampant and unchecked corruption' when deciding whether to go along.
Bhachu, however, argued strongly that Solis' cooperation was perhaps 'singular' even in the city's long history of political corruption, personally making hundreds of recordings and helping form the basis of government requests for wiretaps on others.
'A lot of people talk about cleaning up corruption, and often all it amounts to is talk,' Bhachu said. 'It's rare when someone actually delivers, and in this regard, Mr. Solis delivered.'
Bhachu continued to defend Solis when Madigan's attorneys raked him over the coals in cross-examination in December, revealing new information that the alderman had taken a suitcase of cash from a Chinese businessman in Shanghai and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from his sister that he never declared as income on his taxes.
'You cannot trust Danny Solis,' Madigan attorney Dan Collins told the jury in his closing argument. 'Cannot trust him. He's got his own agenda, and he's as sly as a fox.'
Bhachu countered simply that some of the defense claims about Solis were 'overwrought' and that Solis' dealings with Madigan were caught on tape, marginalizing the importance of his credibility.
Even Bhachu's critics had a respect for him, and knew that if their clients dared to take the stand, they were in for tough cross-examination, often done without glancing at notes — but far from winging it.
'He's got a really quick mind and a great wit,' Funk said. 'He's not one of those prosecutors who has 10 bullet points he reads from and sticks to the script. He knows how to live in the moment in front of a jury or a judge.'
Not one to shout or pace around, Bhachu would get points across instead with rapid-fire questions from the lectern that kept defendants off script and often used their own words against them. Straight-faced, he'd also make it clear to the jury when a defendant tried to appear flippant or amused at his questions.
At one point during his cross of Madigan, Bhachu asked the former speaker, 'Again, I'd like you to answer the question I've asked … you knew on this day the project was not in trouble?'
When Madigan started to chuckle, Bhachu cut him off. 'Is there something funny about my question?'
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