Ex-Cook County Clerk Employee Sentenced For Lying To Feds

CHICAGO, IL — After saying he lied to a federal grand jury because he feared retaliation, Sivasubramani Rajaram, of Glenview, was sentenced Monday to three years of probation, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

In a plea agreement, Rajaram said he gave $15,000 in "loans" to Goat Masters Corporation, a goat meat company controlled by Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown and her husband in August 2014.

Within a month, he was hired as a senior clerk in Brown's office.

In asking for a prison sentence of more than a year, federal prosecutors said Rajaram lied to a grand jury investigating Brown's office to "divert" the investigation into her office, including into a senior employee identified as "Individual B" in his indictment.

Last summer, Rajaram said he was close to getting immunity for lying in order to testify again to the grand jury but had a mental breakdown in the office of the U.S. Attorney, the Sun-Times reported.

In court Monday, Rajaram said he lied to protect his family because he was afraid of Brown, Individual B and others, describing them as "high-powered people politically," according to the Chicago Tribune.

Federal prosecutor Heather McShain said "grand jury has never heard the truth” from Rajaram, who said the experience has caused him serious mental anguish, according to the Sun-Times.

Neither four-term incumbent Brown nor her husband has been charged with any wrongdoing as a result of the federal investigation into the office of the Cook County Circuit Court Clerk.

She won the Democratic primary for Clerk last year by 17 percentage points shortly after Rajaram agreed to plead guilty despite losing the endorsements of several party leaders.

» via the Chicago Sun Times

Top photo: Dorothy Brown in 2015, Courtesy Daniel X. O'Neil (CC)