The corrupt former chief of staff to onetime Cook County Commissioner Jeff Tobolski won a sentencing break Tuesday, convincing a judge to reduce his lengthy prison term to time served.
Patrick Doherty has been serving a 64-month prison sentence handed down to him in 2023 by U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman. The judge delivered that sentence after Doherty admitted to several schemes that involved Tobolski and the late state Sen. Martin Sandoval.
They revolved around Doherty’s job in Cook County government, the villages of Oak Lawn and McCook, a cigar lounge in Countryside, red-light cameras and bribes totaling $148,000.
But Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Franklin Valderrama agreed to reduce Doherty’s prison sentence to 51 months — or time served — because of changes to federal sentencing guidelines since 2023.
Valderrama inherited the case from Guzman earlier this year after Doherty filed a motion seeking the sentencing break. Guzman is no longer a sitting judge, records show.
Doherty was still being held in a prison facility in Kentucky as of Wednesday morning, according to prison records. Defense attorney Burt Odelson wrote in a court filing earlier this year that Doherty had “been a model prisoner since his incarceration in June 2023.”
Prosecutors did not oppose Doherty’s bid for a reduced sentence, but they asked the judge to lower it only by seven months.
“Doherty sought to corrupt and pay off multiple public officials to benefit himself financially and protect his interests, at the expense of the citizens those officials were elected to serve,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Hanna Helwig wrote in May.
Helwig added that, “Doherty clearly believed the rules did not apply to him.”
Doherty’s sentence reduction comes as his former boss, Tobolski, nears his own sentencing hearing. It’s been five years since Tobolski pleaded guilty to an extortion conspiracy charge in September 2020.
Tobolski also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors at the time, though, so his sentencing was delayed while that played out. The hearing is now set for Aug. 11, and the feds are asking U.S. District Chief Judge Virgina Kendall to give Tobolski more than 5 ½ years in prison.
Former Worth Township Supervisor John O’Sullivan was also sentenced to probation last week for a scheme involving Doherty to pay off an Oak Lawn trustee. O’Sullivan and Doherty were working at the time as agents for the red-light camera company SafeSpeed LLC.
The trustee had reached out to O’Sullivan for help finding a summer job for his teenage son. O’Sullivan brought it up to Doherty. That’s when the men began discussing how to leverage the situation to expand SafeSpeed’s footprint in Oak Lawn, records show.
SafeSpeed has not been charged with wrongdoing, and it has decried the actions of those who have.
Doherty told O’Sullivan he would pay the trustee’s son “if it’s going to get us the job,” records show.
“I’ll just pay it,” Doherty allegedly said. “Just make sure we get the, make sure we get the f—-ing thing, the contract.”
The trustee was not charged with wrongdoing. He told a grand jury that he never connected O’Sullivan’s willingness to help his son to support for red-light cameras in Oak Lawn, records show. O’Sullivan never raised the issue with him.
The board of trustees did not approve additional cameras as a result of the efforts of Doherty and O’Sullivan, according to O’Sullivan’s defense attorney.