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The Resurrection of Carl Officer

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As serious as those charges are, they pale in comparison to the plight of Kelvin Ellis, the city's director of regulatory affairs. A precinct committeeman and integral cog in the Powell-Jackson political machine, Ellis ascended to his post despite having served 21 months of hard time on a federal extortion charge in 1990, when he was employed as the city's personnel director during the first Officer administration. This time around Ellis is charged with three counts of income-tax evasion and four counts of obstruction of justice -- one of which involves tape-recorded conversations during which Ellis allegedly contracted for the murder of a government informant. (For highlights from the tape transcripts, see "Problem's Over" in the January 26 Riverfront Times.)

That allegation, in turn, sheds new light on rampant but unfounded rumors that Ellis put out a similar hit on former city manager Harvey Henderson, who died in 2002 after mysteriously falling from an overpass. (Illinois State Police classified Henderson's death as accidental.)

Ellis, who is being held in prison without bail, was snared via wiretapped conversations with Deputy Police Chief Rudy McIntosh, who'd offered his services to the FBI as an informant. A little more than a week later, McIntosh, a former undercover narcotics officer who is currently a precinct committeeman and a candidate for East St. Louis township supervisor, was put on paid administrative leave pending a state police investigation into whether he shot and killed Floyd Reese in 1979. (McIntosh, a nineteen-year-old civilian at the time, confirms he was at the scene of Reese's murder but denies having played a role in the unsolved crime, which occurred during an altercation involving a dice game.) The East St. Louis Police Department's internal-affairs unit is also looking into whether McIntosh and three of his fellow officers joined the force without having earned either a high school diploma or GED -- a benchmark requirement. McIntosh says he earned the equivalency degree after being expelled from high school.

Also revealed at Ellis' January 29 detention hearing were allegations that the defendant had been operating a prostitution ring from his office in city hall.

"In all my years of public service, I could never have imagined these allegations against a municipal employee," Officer says of the charges faced by his former director of personnel. "This is a small southern Illinois community. There's no oil here. Yet these boys play politics at a level found nowhere outside of Chicago or New Orleans.

"We have a considerable amount of convicted felons running city departments," notes the mayor. "That should have said something to somebody."

The day Ellis was indicted, Officer held a press conference at city hall to discuss the allegations. Flanked by two of his former taxpayer-funded police bodyguards, Lester "Boom" Anderson and Delbert Marion -- a pair of Marine Corps veterans who are opposing Jackson and Powell in the April 5 city council elections (the top two win) -- Officer said he felt the indictments were "just the tip of the iceberg."

Officer makes no bones about his opinion that the FBI's tentacles will inevitably reach Powell and Jackson, both of whom testified before a federal grand jury looking into voter-fraud allegations stemming from Democrat Mark Kern's narrow victory over Republican Steve Reeb in the hotly contested race last November to replace long-time St. Clair County supervisor John Baricevic.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office confirms that Powell and Jackson testified before the grand jury but declines to speculate on the outcome of the investigation, which is ongoing.

Reeb says a large sum of cash funneled from the St. Clair County Democratic Party to the East St. Louis Central Democratic Committee in the week leading up to election day was used to buy the votes of East St. Louisans, 82 percent of whom favored Kern. (Reeb carried the rest of the county.)

Jackson, who holds the title of first vice chair of the Central Democratic Committee, will not comment on anything related to the grand jury's proceedings.

Committee chairman Powell says the influx of money was spent to pay for doorbelling and other legitimate get-out-the-vote efforts. "There's quite a bit of money spent in East St. Louis because it's staunch Democratic and poor," he explains. "People know that on election day they can get hired by committeemen. This is jackpot day, and they know the committeeman has the money. It's really just a hustle: The money is spent to attract and turn out the vote. I provide lunch at my polling place, because you want them to come."

Testimony at Ellis' detention hearing painted a less-innocent picture. There Assistant U.S. Attorney Hal Goldsmith alleged that Ellis had ordered one of his employees to pay voters "who voted the way he wished" in the November 2 elections.

In most cities, such a string of events would be a black eye. Not so in East St. Louis.

"To be perfectly honest, I think everyone in East St. Louis is elated that the FBI is here," says Pat Gibson. "The fight that Carl has down there is a fight against evil. The devil has always been in East St. Louis. To kill that devil, you have to stand up to him."

Adds SIUE's Professor Theising: "Right now Charlie Powell is facing a significant investigation. The future of East St. Louis' power structure hinges on the outcome."

But, cautions Theising, "The larger issue is: Where do you stop enforcing the law? Selective enforcement has been a reality in politics forever. What if you took the same magnifying glass and used it in Chicago? You'd see the same activity with much bigger names attached."

Former city manager and ex-deputy mayor (under Officer) Lamar Gentry cites East St. Louis' chronic bureaucratic ineptitude as the chief reason the feds have singled out the city.

"There's corruption in every city," asserts Gentry, who now works for a real estate agency on the southern edge of town. "But if you take care of business, people turn their heads. And the perception here is that they haven't done anything in years."

When people speak of the change that's occurred in Carl Officer since he left office in 1991, they inevitably circle back to Lisa, his wife of seven years, and Carli, his four-year-old daughter.

At city hall, Officer's lone legislative aide is a woman. Most of the volunteers who answer his phone are women. His press liaison is a woman. The matronly acquaintances who pray with him at his mortuary every couple of weeks since his beloved mother's death last April are women. And the neighbors who paddled his misbehaving ass every afternoon back when Carl was a student at Crispus Attucks Elementary School were women.

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