FEDS ROLL UP HEROIN-SELLING OPERATION

Water Department Employees In Chicago Among Those Charged

CHICAGO - Eight people, including two employees of Chicago's
scandal-plagued water department and another city worker, were
arrested Wednesday as federal investigators rolled up what they
described as one branch of a Colombian drug-trafficking operation.

The water department itself, already awash in charges of bribery and
other political corruption, was not charged with being part of the
heroin distribution ring. But investigators did find that department
workers "were engaging in this kind of conduct during weekdays,
during workdays, when they should not have been," U.S. Attorney
Patrick J. Fitzgerald said at a news conference.

Federal officials said the ongoing investigation got under way in
February with a tip from a government informant and could produce
more arrests soon.

The charges came as a fresh blow to the administration of Mayor
Richard M. Daley, whose standing with voters has fallen as a result
of corruption, according to the latest Chicago Tribune poll. Daley
immediately fired one of the city workers and started proceedings
aimed at dismissal of the two others.

A number of water department employees - including the former first
deputy commissioner, a longtime precinct captain in the Daley
family's 11th Ward - have been charged with corruption involving the
$38 million Hired Truck Program, which outsourced work to private
trucking companies, some with mob ties.

Private truckers got work under the Hired Truck Program in exchange
for bribes and campaign contributions, federal officials allege.

Fitzgerald emphasized that the heroin charges were not part of the
Hired Truck investigation. But he declined to say whether the
initial tip that sparked the investigation came from anyone involved
in the Hired Truck scandal.

Charged as the mastermind of the heroin-selling operation was George
A. Prado, 47, a water department hoisting engineer. His
brother-in-law, Anthony C. Ritacco, 45, and water department worker
Michael D. Hart, 39, were charged with being members of the
ring. Ritacco is a seasonal cement mixer for the city transportation
department.

A third water department employee is a cooperating witness in the
case, officials said.

Defense attorney Joseph Lopez, representing Prado and Ritacco, said
his clients would plead innocent but added that they would "sort out
what the government has and plan how we are going to answer the
charges." He said that thus far the case rests largely on hundreds of
phone call intercepts.

Reminded that agents had also confiscated cocaine, he said: "I don't
know who they are going to link that to." He said he had previously
gotten Prado cleared of charges that he failed to obtain a firearms
owners card and had also represented a Ritacco cousin who was charged
with a state offense.

Defense attorney Eugene O'Malley, representing Hart, declined to comment.

Last week, Daley fired city water management commissioner Richard
A. Rice and nine water department workers after it was discovered
that employees were being recorded as on duty at the city's Jardine
Water Filtration Plant when they were not there. One of those fired
was John Briatta, the brother-in-law of Daley's own brother, Cook
County Commissioner John Daley.

In the heroin investigation, those arrested in Chicago appeared
Wednesday afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Nan Nolan who
ordered them held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center pending
bond hearings Thursday and Tuesday.

One of those charged in the investigation was arrested Wednesday in
New York; seven were arrested in Chicago.

A ninth defendant, described as a drug courier, was quietly taken
into custody a week ago after Prado allegedly discussed beating him
and perhaps killing him for losing a kilogram of heroin when Illinois
State Police stopped his vehicle for a speeding violation.

"He is safely in jail," Fitzgerald told reporters.

In rounding up the defendants, FBI agents confiscated 16 kilograms of
cocaine, a quarter kilogram of heroin, a gun and $50,000 in cash,
Fitzgerald said.

Federal officials described Prado as a high-level distributor who
bought heroin in bulk from Colombia and sold it in 100-gram amounts
to wholesalers who then passed it along to dealers.

The operation was described in four complaints totaling more than 100
pages. Two telephone taps were used to gather evidence, according to
federal officials.

Even after the heroin was taken from the courier's truck on May 24,
the distribution ring stayed in operation, federal officials
said. They said the most recent transfer of drugs took place just
two days before FBI agents and Chicago police moved in to make the arrests.

"Obviously that is very brazen," Fitzgerald said.