The battle against public corruption goes on and on in Lake County, Indiana.

The Northwest Indiana Times writes that the latest conviction — this time political king maker Robert Cantrell — marks number 45 on the list of those cogs in the political machine who have been convicted.

Writes Joe Carlson in “Robert Cantrell was 45th conviction in political machine“:

This month, East Chicago political operative Robert “Bob” Cantrell became the 45th Democrat convicted since 2001 in the Hammond U.S. attorney’s office’s Operation Restore Public Integrity. Cantrell is trying to get the case overturned on a technicality in a dispute that appears likely to drag on for months.

The federal cases come in addition to 45 convictions for voting crimes in cases filed in Lake County Criminal Court by the Joint Vote Fraud Task Force, which focused mainly on East Chicago Democratic voting irregularities in 2003 and included several incidents of vote fraud perpetrated by police and firefighters.

“Is this really, really the death knell for old-time politics?” asked political commentator and academic administrator Dan Lowery. “Only time will tell.”

Of course, we have to be careful who we elect to the attorney general’s position in November if we hope to continue protecting the hardworking men and women in Lake County from having their tax dollars stolen.

The Northwest Indiana Times reports that the Democrat’s candidate for attorney general Linda Pence says she will have to review cases in all counties — not just Lake County.

While announcing her candidacy last week, Pence said if elected she would need to conduct an extensive review before she would decide whether to continue the office’s civil racketeering case against former East Chicago Mayor Robert Pastrick. …

“I will be looking at any and every case involving public corruption, not just in Lake County but in the 91 other counties as well,” Pence said.

Reviewing all of those public corruption cases in 91 other Indiana counties could take a long time and a lot of effort. (And, Robert Pastrick is heavily connected in the Democratic party — he’s a superdelegate after all). Maybe those public corruption case reviews will take so much time, effort and energy that nothing will get done in Lake County if Linda Pence is elected?

The Northwest Indiana Times got it right when it wrote in an editorial that there is a clear choice for Attorney General this year:

Hoosier voters have a clear choice among candidates for attorney general this fall.

There’s Republican Greg Zoeller, who has the backing of Attorney General Steve Carter and is the No. 2 person in that department.

Zoeller has promised to continue to aggressively prosecute the RICO (racketeer influenced corrupt organizations) case against the former East Chicago Mayor Robert Pastrick and his administration.

And then there’s Democrat Linda Pence, who has argued against using outside counsel in that case. The attorney general’s office has enough attorneys to handle that case, she has said.

What she didn’t say was that she represented paving company Rieth-Riley in a federal lawsuit that resulted from the infamous 1999 East Chicago sidewalks-for-votes scandal.

Rieth-Riley, her client, paid $625,000 to settle claims in federal court that the company helped city officials conspire to divert more than $24 million in public money in that spending spree.

Technorati Tags: Democratic Party, Greg Zoeller, Indiana Attorney General, Linda Pence, public corruption, Robert Cantrell, Robert Pastrick

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