One family has governed Rosemont since 1956. This ledger documents — from state campaign-finance filings, corporate records, property deeds, and the Village's own compensation reports — where the money goes.
Every figure below is drawn from a cited public record. Nothing on this page alleges criminal conduct.
The Dynasty
Rosemont has 3,952 residents, a ~$319 million municipal appropriation, and one governing family — for nearly seventy years.
It is perhaps America's last true political machine. It reminds your correspondent, who has spent years reporting in Africa, of Gabon, a petrostate that was ruled by the same family for 56 years.The Economist — "Inside the last true political machine in America," Dec. 2023
Donald E. Stephens founded the village in 1956 and served as its president for 51 years, until his death in 2007. The board appointed his son Bradley A. Stephens the next day by acclamation. Bradley has been mayor ever since — and, since June 2019, simultaneously the Illinois State Representative for the 20th District. He last faced a mayoral opponent in 2009, winning 998 votes to 98. In 2013, 2017, 2021, and 2025 he ran unopposed.
Relationships per Vote Smart (official biography: Mayor Stephens' children include Daniel, Raquel, and Bradley II), Chicago Tribune obituary of Donald E. Stephens II (Aug. 2016), Daily Herald (Aug. 31, 2011), and Illinois Policy (2016–18). Compensation per Village of Rosemont 2024 Compensation Report (P.A. 097-0609). *Bomark contract figure as reported; see Chapter V. At least three of the mayor's own five children — Daniel, Raquel, and Bradley II — appear on the village payroll.
The Economist also noted the structural mechanism: a residency bylaw means roughly 236 village employees live locally — about one for every seven households — so the mayor "directly controls the employment of a large share of his voters."
The matriarch's ledger
The money runs through the family's widows, too. State contribution records show Katherine Stephens — identified in the mayor's 2007 obituary as Donald Sr.'s widow (filings variously list her as Katherine and Katherine Green Stephens) — giving more than $100,000 of her own: $5,000 to Bradley's committeeman fund almost every year from 1999 through 2012, $26,000 to Democratic state Rep. Ralph Capparelli, $15,000 to George Ryan, $5,000 to Corinne Wood. Her earliest contribution on file, in 1994, lists her address as 9501 W. Devon — the village's own address of record on its deeds — then 6021 Hawthorne Street in Rosemont and, beginning in 2008, the year after the mayor's death, Sarasota, Florida. Her Rosemont years overlap the Tribune's 2001 headline about the mayor's wife receiving village contracts. The Hawthorne house never left the family: it is held today by Christopher R. Stephens, the convention-center director, who quit-claimed it into joint ownership with his wife Nicole in September 2025 — in a deed prepared by Storino, Ramello & Durkin, the village's law firm. Documented As reported
ISBE contributor records (elections.il.gov), exported July 2026; Chicago Tribune/Legacy obituary of Donald E. Stephens (April 2007: "loving husband of Katherine, nee Murphy"); Cook County Treasurer, PIN 12-04-217-019-0000; Cook County Clerk Quit Claim Deed #2526623105 (rec. 9/23/2025; prepared by Peter A. Pacione, Storino Ramello & Durkin). Bradley Stephens' mother was Estelle "Pat" Stephens, née Patronski (d. 2020, per Wikipedia); Katherine was his stepmother.
Five Committees, One Family
Bradley Stephens controls or has controlled five political committees. Together they have raised $13.76 million since 1999 — and they move money to each other constantly.
| Committee | Receipts | Expenditures |
|---|---|---|
| Rosemont Voters League (the family's own political party; Treasurer: Mark R. Stephens) | $4,611,193 | $4,917,053 |
| Stephens Political Action Committee NFP | $3,984,860 | $3,671,868 |
| Brad Stephens for State Representative | $2,908,940 | $2,196,249 |
| Leyden Township Regular Republican Organization | $1,305,309 | $1,554,988 |
| Brad Stephens for Mayor | $949,604 | $935,714 |
| Combined, 1999–2026 | $13,759,906 | $13,275,871 |
Illinois State Board of Elections itemized D-2 filings, exported via Illinois Sunshine, July 2026. A sixth fund, the Bradley A. Stephens Committeeman Fund (now inactive), also appears throughout the transfer data.
The closed loop
The committees exchanged more than $1.7 million among themselves. Selected transfers:
- Stephens PAC NFP → Brad Stephens for Mayor $250,800
- Stephens PAC NFP → Bradley A. Stephens Committeeman Fund $235,000
- Stephens PAC NFP → Leyden Township GOP $247,500
- Stephens PAC NFP → Brad Stephens for State Rep $160,750
- Rosemont Voters League → Brad Stephens for State Rep $130,000
A statewide bank
Stephens PAC NFP also operates as a leadership fund, distributing roughly $1.9 million to other Illinois Republican campaigns — McCombie for Illinois ($70,000), Friends of Matt Podgorski ($55,000), Silvestri for Cook County Commissioner ($79,350), Citizens for Durkin ($47,500), the Illinois Republican Party ($38,500), and dozens more. One notable line: $31,250 to Citizens for Michael P. McAuliffe — the representative whose 2019 resignation created the House seat Stephens was then appointed to fill.
The reach extends to the bench. On August 4, 2016, Allegretti for Judge — a mostly self-funded Park Ridge judicial campaign — recorded a same-day cluster of Rosemont-network money: $1,000 from Stephens PAC NFP, $1,000 from Storino Ramello & Durkin (the village's law firm), $1,000 from Rosemont Exposition Services, $500 from Christopher B. Burke Engineering of Rosemont, and $500 from Citizens for Saviano. Same-day contributions are consistent with a fundraiser; what the record shows is the machine's leadership fund and the village's vendors backing a judicial candidate in concert. Documented
ISBE itemized expenditures, D-2 Part 6B (transfers out), via Illinois Sunshine; Allegretti for Judge itemized receipts (2016), via Illinois Sunshine.
The Byron Street Files
Two "consulting" firms on one residential block in Rosemont — each owned by a Stephens — collected three-quarters of a million dollars from the family's committees. Every link below is documented in a state or county filing.
Amazing Giraffe Consulting, Inc. Documented
Braile Services, Inc. Documented
Amazing Giraffe was paid concurrently by all five Stephens-controlled funds — Stephens PAC NFP ($157,250), Brad Stephens for Mayor ($125,250), the Committeeman Fund ($106,000), the State Rep committee ($65,750), and Leyden Township GOP ($52,750) — splitting one beneficiary's income across five sets of books. Payments continued through February 2026. Neither firm has any discoverable web presence, client list, or advertising.
Daniel J. Stephens is the mayor's son. Per Bradley Stephens' own official biography, his children include Daniel, Raquel, and Bradley II. So the $507,000 in committee "consulting" fees flowed from the mayor's political funds to a corporation owned by the mayor's son — who also appears on the village payroll as its Payroll Manager. The 6034 property next door was owned and occupied by Catherine Stephens throughout Braile's paying years; she sold it to a private buyer for $610,000 in June 2021, per the recorded warranty deed — three years after that corporation dissolved.
What this is, and isn't: Illinois law permits committees to pay family-owned vendors for actual services, and these payments were disclosed. No filing reviewed here alleges the services weren't performed. What the records establish is self-dealing as a system — the mayor's son, and his late brother's company, paid in round numbers under one-word purposes, across five funds, for fourteen years.
Illinois Secretary of State corporate filings (File #71203662; #56876847); ISBE itemized expenditures via Illinois Sunshine; Cook County Treasurer taxpayer records; Cook County Clerk Warranty Deed Doc. #2120255122 (rec. 7/21/2021); Vote Smart official biography (family).
Open verification In progress
Amazing Giraffe's earliest 2017 invoices used a different address — a condominium at 9628 W. Higgins Rd — before moving to 6035 Byron St. County deed records show that unit was owned by other Rosemont village employees, not the Stephens family; the most likely explanation is that Daniel Stephens rented there before the company's address moved to his own property. That thread is treated as closed and does not appear among the findings above.
On the Village Payroll
Rosemont's own legally required compensation disclosure lists eight employees named Stephens in 2024 — in a village of 3,952 people.
| Name | Title | Salary | Total package |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stephens, Christopher Raymond | Executive Director | $318,500 | $350,733 |
| Stephens Sr., Bradley | Mayor | $234,998 + $25,000 board | $288,232 |
| Stephens II, Bradley Alan | General Manager | $185,000 | $213,233 |
| Stephens, Snezana | Executive Account Manager | $143,500 | $143,500 |
| Stephens Jr., Scott A | Public Safety Sergeant | $141,500 | $169,733 |
| Stephens, Daniel | Payroll Manager | $92,000 | $103,293 |
| Stephens, Raquel | Admin Assistant | $75,000 | $86,293 |
| Stephens, Mark | Building Maintenance | $57,000 | $85,233 |
| Eight employees | ≈$1.25M | ≈$1.44M | |
Village of Rosemont Compensation Report 2024, published under Illinois P.A. 097-0609. Exact family relation of each individual to the mayor is noted only where independently reported.
The village's newest treasurer's report shows the pattern holding through 2025: four family members in the $150,000-and-over payroll bracket — Bradley Sr., Bradley II, Christopher, and Scott Jr. — with Snezana, Daniel, Mark, and Raquel across the middle tiers, and a $262.38 vendor payment to Suzi Stephens, the mayor's wife.
The pattern is not new. The Daily Herald calculated in 2011 that ten Stephens family members then on the payroll earned nearly $1 million — and that six families together accounted for a tenth of the village's entire $20 million personnel budget. When trustees voted Bradley Stephens a 53% raise in 2016, it made him — at $260,000 — more highly paid than the mayor of Chicago, in a village where median household income was about $34,000.
Don Stephens founded Rosemont, so yeah, there are employees that are related or are Stephens family members… Rosemont makes no apology for that whatsoever.Gary Mack, spokesman for Mayor Bradley Stephens — Daily Herald, Aug. 31, 2011
Village employees are also reliable donors: contributors listing "Village of Rosemont" as their employer have given $429,672 across 367 contributions to the Stephens committees — including $56,600 from Christopher Stephens and $48,284 from the mayor himself. The reach extends beyond the village too: Karen Stephens — an in-law, married to a village employee — has directed the separately-governed Rosemont Park District since 1997, and Illinois Policy noted in 2016 that the mayor, his late brother, and his nephew all draw from the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, to which taxpayers had contributed 2.6 times the employees' own share.
ISBE itemized receipts via Illinois Sunshine; Daily Herald (2011); Illinois Policy Institute (2016); Chicago Tribune via Governing (2016).
The Contracts
Beyond salaries and committees, money reaches the family and its allies through the Village's own vendor relationships — a pattern reported for a quarter-century.
- Bomark Cleaning Service Corp. — owned by Mark R. Stephens, the mayor's brother (Illinois SOS: president & secretary since its 1981 founding); held the cleaning & parking contracts at the Allstate Arena, Rosemont Theatre, and Convention Center for ~four decades, mostly without bidding. Its corporate address is the Village Hall building; its registered agent is the village's own law firm. The village's own 2025 treasurer's report itemizes $4,722,812.93 paid to Bomark that year. Documented$4.72M · FY2025 (village report)
- The 2026 rupture: in the village's first competitive bid for the arena work, Bomark bid $37/hr against the winner's $30.95 and lost the contracts it had held since the 1980s. Its theatre contract was scrapped in 2025 after Triton College — chaired by Mark Stephens — sued the village over a TIF. Mark Stephens publicly calls the losses retaliation; the village denies it. The Convention Center deal, Bomark's largest, was pending as of April 2026. As reportedOngoing
- Monterrey Security — venue security contract awarded in 2015 without competitive bidding; the Sun-Times reported in 2019 that the FBI asked employees about it. Monterrey was co-founded by Santiago Solis — brother of ex-Ald. Danny Solis, the federal cooperator whose recorded conversations helped convict House Speaker Michael Madigan, a conviction upheld on appeal in April 2026 — and its 2015 City Hall lobbyist was a friend of James DeLeo, whom the Sun-Times called "a longtime ally of the Stephens clan." No charges have been reported. Monterrey has itself donated to the Rosemont Voters League — $1,250 in 2016 and $1,750 in March 2026 — while holding the contract; the village's 2025 treasurer's report shows it was paid $226,786.25 that year. As reported Documented≈$5M paid
- Rosemont Catering (Convention Center food service) — paid by the Stephens campaign committees, recycling political money into a Village-linked operation Documented$1,864,467
- Village of Rosemont itself — rent paid by the committees for offices at Village property Documented$176,692
- Orange Crush, LLC (Palumbo family, Hillside) — paid $25M+ by Rosemont since 2007. After affiliated Palumbo companies were federally convicted in a road-project fraud and barred indefinitely from state and federal work, Rosemont kept using Orange Crush — which gave ~$170,000 to Stephens-controlled funds after those convictions. As reported$25M+ / $170K back
- Expo Center expansion firms tied to Stephens business associates (1990s, per UIC's Suburban Corruption study)$18M+
Wikipedia (Bomark, w/ Tribune citation); Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 4, 2020 (Orange Crush/Palumbo $25M & $170K in donations, via campaign-finance records); Chicago Sun-Times, July 26, 2019 (Monterrey/FBI); ISBE data via Illinois Sunshine (Catering, rent); UIC Political Science, "Suburban Corruption" (1998); Daily Herald, April 2026 (Bomark bids); Chicago Tribune, April 27, 2026 (Madigan conviction upheld on appeal; Solis cooperation). The Tribune reported as early as 2001: "Stephens' Wife Gets Rosemont Contracts" and "Village To Pay More On Contracts With Firm Run by Stephens' Son."
The loop, closed
Campaign records complete the circuit: Bomark itself is a political donor — $449,370 across 400+ contributions since 1994, billing from the Village Hall building. Just over half — roughly $235,000 — went to the Stephens family's own funds: $147,000 to the Bradley A. Stephens Committeeman Fund, $41,450 to the Rosemont Voters League, $30,200 to Leyden Township GOP, and $16,500 more across the Mayor, State Rep, PAC NFP, and Friends of Mark Stephens accounts. And the owner writes personal checks on top of the corporate ones: Mark Stephens gave $75,000 to his brother's committeeman fund in a single contribution — putting combined Bomark-and-owner money into that one fund near $222,000. Stated plainly: the village the mayor runs pays his brother's company millions in largely unbid contracts, and the company returns hundreds of thousands to the committees the mayor controls. Every step is legal and disclosed. The structure is the story.
ISBE itemized receipts via Illinois Sunshine, full-database "Bomark" search, 1994–March 2026. Bomark's giving also spanned both parties statewide — from Citizens for George Ryan ($14,000) to Friends of Michael J. Madigan ($3,500), Daley, Emanuel, and Topinka. Political contributions are lawful; recipients' later legal troubles are unrelated to Bomark.
The village was renowned for insider dealing, acting as a legal mechanism to funnel money to the Stephens family.Chicago Tribune, as summarized in Rosemont's Wikipedia entry
The counsel in the middle
One law firm appears on every side of this ledger. Storino, Ramello & Durkin is the village's counsel; it shares its offices in the village hall building with Bomark and serves as Bomark's registered agent; it was registered agent for the Mandas corporations on the village's Rosewood land (Chapter VI); its Judge Don Storino administered the mayor's 2017 oath; and in September 2025 it prepared the deed work on a Stephens family home (Chapter I). It is also a donor: the firm and its principals have given more than $1.5 million to Illinois campaigns since 1995 — more than $220,000 of it to the Stephens-controlled funds, with contributions as recent as June 2026 — alongside six-figure support for suburban operations from Cicero's Dominick organization to Berwyn's Mayor Lovero, the mayor in Chapter VII's Gold Rush pattern. The vendor that performs the village's legal work funds the political apparatus of the mayor who retains it — $196,980.12 in village legal payments in 2025 alone, per the village's own treasurer's report. Lawful, disclosed, and continuous. Documented
The pandemic dividend
Federal records add a chapter no one audited. Six firms in this ledger's orbit collected roughly $16.8 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans, every dollar forgiven: Monterrey ($6.66M), Rosemont Exposition Services ($2.78M), Orange Crush ($2.62M), Bomark ($2.37M across two draws), Gold Rush ($1.97M), and the Storino firm ($411,700, approved April 6, 2020 — the program's first week). Honesty requires distinctions: Gold Rush's machines were ordered dark by the state and Monterrey's events vanished, making their claims straightforward. Others carry open questions. Bomark's second draw required certifying a 25% revenue drop — while its principal customer was a government; the Storino firm certified economic necessity while anchored to that same uninterrupted client; and Orange Crush received a federally guaranteed loan years after its affiliated companies were barred from government contracts. Whether the certifications hold is a question for the records, not this ledger — the forgiven dollars are simply fact. Meanwhile, the two Byron Street consulting firms appear nowhere in the program: a firm without real payroll cannot take a payroll loan. Documented
U.S. Small Business Administration PPP loan-level data via ProPublica's Tracking PPP database, retrieved July 2026; Village of Rosemont Annual Treasurer's Report, FY2025 (vendor disbursements), published per 65 ILCS 5/3.1-35-65.
ISBE contributor records (elections.il.gov), "Storino" search, exported July 2026: Bradley A. Stephens Committeeman Fund $119,790; Stephens PAC NFP $56,010; Rosemont Voters League $43,100; Brad Stephens for State Rep (through 6/18/2026); Silvestri $76,331; Saviano committees $65,800 (through 7/8/2026); Cicero Voters Alliance $48,600; Committee to Elect Robert J. Lovero $30,430.
The Landlord
Rosemont doesn't just govern its hospitality strip — it owns the ground under it. The mayor is, functionally, the town's leasing agent.
The village's flagship entertainment district — the restaurant-and-venue loop at Park Place — opened in 2012 as a development the village built on its own land, with a reported investment of more than $40 million. Its parcels are tax-exempt public property; every venue there is a tenant of the Village of Rosemont. Even the district's name is a village revenue deal: MB Financial paid roughly $3 million over 56 months beginning in 2012, and when that lapsed, the board approved a naming-rights agreement with Parkway Bank & Trust at $600,000 a year — an agreement Mayor Stephens said village officials negotiated directly, without the middleman agency used for the prior deal. Parkway is the same bank whose principals appear throughout the Emerald Casino record described in Chapter VII. As reported
Case study: the steakhouse on village land
The model predates the district by decades, and one address documents it end to end. In August 1988, a land trust — Trust No. LT-88-026 — was created at Northwest Commerce Bank, and seventeen days later two corporations were filed the same day: Rosewood Restaurant and Banquets, Ltd. and J.M. Realty, Inc., both owned by restaurateur James W. Mandas. In May 1990, the village — under Donald Stephens Sr. — signed a Ground Lease and Redevelopment Agreement with the trust: village land, private steakhouse. The registered agent for both Mandas corporations, from 1990 on, was Donald J. Storino — the village's own attorney, whose firm today sits in the village hall building. Documented
When Mandas retired at 67 — "I want to ride off into the sunset," he told the Daily Herald — the structure unwound on paper in a single January 2015 closing: a trustee's deed and quit claims conveying every interest back to the village, the bank's liens released, and a fresh ten-year lease, already signed by the village weeks earlier, delivering the premises to a new tenant entity. That tenant turned out to be Chicago's storied Gene & Georgetti steakhouse, which opened its first-ever second location there in July 2015 with the mayor at the ribbon-cutting; its managing partner thanked not a landlord or a broker but the government itself: "I want to thank the Village of Rosemont for this opportunity." Documented As reported
Every step was lawful and recorded. What the chain shows is the operating system: the village owns the dirt beneath its hospitality economy, the mayor's office selects and re-selects the tenants, and the village's law firm papers both sides. In Rosemont, the biggest landlord in town and the government are the same thing — and the same family has managed both for seventy years.
Cook County Clerk recorded documents: Ground Lease Memorandum #90303854 (June 26, 1990); Trustee's Deed #1500622023, Quit Claim Deeds #1500622024–25, Lease Memorandum #1500519053 (Village of Rosemont, landlord; ten-year term from Feb. 2015 with two five-year options), Fifth Third releases #1501508118–22 (Jan. 2015); ILSOS corporate records #55196036, #55196044 (both inc. Aug. 19, 1988; agent Donald J. Storino); Commercial Property Executive (village-owned district, $40M+); Daily Herald, Oct. 11, 2017 (Parkway naming rights, $600K/yr, directly negotiated) and Oct. 14, 2014 (Mandas retirement); Journal & Topics and NWI Times (Gene & Georgetti opening, July 2015).
Gaming Money
Rosemont's history with gambling runs from a revoked casino license to a steady stream of donations from Illinois' licensed video-gaming industry.
The donors
Licensed video gaming terminal (VGT) operators and gaming interests appear throughout the Stephens committees' receipts:
- Midwest Gaming & Entertainment, LLC (Rivers Casino) $20,000 · 2024–25
- J & J Ventures Gaming, LLC recurring, thru June 2026
- Accel Entertainment Gaming, LLC recurring
- Gold Rush Amusements, Inc. 2015–16
- Greg Carlin, CEO, Rush Street Gaming $7,500 · 2020–21
ISBE itemized receipts via Illinois Sunshine, all five committees.
The vote
In December 2019, Rep. Stephens co-sponsored HB 3940 — a ban on unlicensed "sweepstakes" machines, the gray-market competitors of his donors' licensed terminals. His stated rationale: the machines "exploit a loophole," escape taxation, and lack player protections. The bill's effect, whatever its merits: eliminating the licensed industry's untaxed competition. Both facts belong in the record together.
Where the donors meet the history
One donor name ties the two halves of this chapter together. Gold Rush Gaming, whose contributions appear in the Stephens committees' records, is owned by Rick Heidner — and the Chicago Tribune documented in 2019 that Heidner has long-standing real-estate partnerships with Rocco Suspenzi, chairman of Parkway Bank & Trust. That is the same bank the Gaming Board record calls Mayor Stephens' bank, and whose principals were exposed by the FBI and IGB in 2003 for concealing their own — and a reputed mob figure's — secret ownership stake in the Emerald casino. Suspenzi took the Fifth at the state hearing.
Heidner's name also surfaced in the September 2019 federal search warrant served at the Capitol office of state Sen. Martin Sandoval — the same corruption orbit that touches the Orange Crush contractor in Chapter V. Sandoval pleaded guilty to federal bribery in 2020 and died that December. When Emerald's license was finally stripped from Rosemont, it was awarded to Des Plaines and became Rivers Casino, whose affiliated interests likewise appear among the Stephens donors. The present-day gaming money and the twenty-year-old casino scandal are, in the documents, one continuous network. None of this alleges wrongdoing by Heidner or Gold Rush, who were licensed by the state; it maps who does business with whom.
The donor's municipal giving had its own paper trail years earlier. In November 2016, the gaming trade press reported that Gold Rush and its chief executive accounted for the largest share of the $78,200 that video-gambling interests had given Chicago-area elected officials over the prior two years — and that between 2012 and 2016, $11,600 of the $13,600 in gambling money received by Berwyn's mayor came from Gold Rush and its top executive, in years when the company's machines in fourteen Berwyn locations earned it more than $1.4 million. Suburban mayors receiving the industry's contributions, the report noted, "often serve as liquor commissioner." Gold Rush's contributions to the Leyden Township Regular Republican Organization — the committee of Bradley Stephens, Rosemont's mayor and Leyden Township's elected committeeman since 2006 — date to that same window, 2015–16. The report alleged no illegality; it documented a pattern of giving.
And the Parkway relationship is no longer historical. Since 2018, the village's entertainment district has carried the bank's name — Parkway Bank Park — under the $600,000-a-year naming-rights agreement described in Chapter VI, which the mayor said the village negotiated directly. The bank of the Emerald record now pays the village that once hosted Emerald's license, in a deal made across the mayor's own desk. The payments flow to the public till; the entanglement, not the direction of the money, is the point. As reported
Chicago Tribune, Oct. 11, 2019 (David Heinzmann), reported from public land, court, and business-registration records; Illinois Gaming Board Emerald ruling (Parkway/Suspenzi findings); ISBE itemized receipts via Illinois Sunshine (Gold Rush, Rush Street/Rivers donations); Global Gaming Business Magazine, Nov. 20, 2016 (Gold Rush municipal-donation pattern); UIC Political Science, Anti-Corruption Report #13, Feb. 2021 (Sandoval guilty plea and death).
The history: the Emerald Casino
The family's most consequential brush with gambling is documented in a 37-page Illinois Gaming Board administrative-law ruling (Judge Abner Mikva, Nov. 15, 2005) recommending permanent revocation of the license once bound for Rosemont. The record it describes is remarkable on its own terms:
- In his sworn statement to the Gaming Board, Mayor Donald Stephens Sr. said a 5% ownership stake in the casino reserved for "local investors" — "that was for me."IGB record
- Stephens told the Board: "you get a bill down there and I can probably kill it with people that I know in the forty-five years I have been around."Sworn stmt
- An October 1999 fundraiser for the Donald E. Stephens Committeeman Fund collected casino-deal money: $25,000 from a Boscarino company, $21,000 (Duchossois), $20,000 (Davis), $25,000 (Flynn), $5,000 (D&P Construction).IGB record
- Casino contractor D&P Construction was identified by the FBI as controlled by Peter and John DiFronzo and obtaining contracts "through illegal payoffs or intimidation."FBI memo
One topic of discussion concerned a casino in Rosemont, Illinois, and [organized crime] control of various contracts regarding its construction and operation.FBI Special Agent John Mallul, reading an FBI report at the Emerald hearing — Chicago Tribune, July 19, 2005
FBI supervisory agent John Mallul testified that on May 29, 1999, at Armand's restaurant in Elmwood Park, Mayor Donald Stephens Sr. met with reputed Chicago Outfit figures — Joey "The Clown" Lombardo, John "No Nose" DiFronzo, his brother Peter, Joe "The Builder" Andriacchi, and Rudy Fratto — to discuss mob control of casino contracts, per a 30-year FBI informant who was present. Stephens vehemently denied it, saying he spent that Memorial Day weekend at his Wisconsin summer home, had never been to Armand's, and called the claim "lunacy" and "scurrilous… the unconfirmed ramblings of an anonymous informant." Judge Mikva rested his revocation recommendation on other grounds and gave no weight to a separate wiretap; he made no finding that the meeting occurred. Stephens — who acknowledged in sworn testimony that he had once bought a hotel from Outfit boss Sam Giancana and had "brushes with law enforcement early in his career" — was twice indicted in the 1980s and acquitted both times.
Illinois Gaming Board, In re Emerald Casino, Inc., Recommendations of ALJ Abner J. Mikva (Nov. 15, 2005); Chicago Tribune, July 19, 2005 ("FBI links casino, Stephens, mob"); Illinois Police & Sheriff's News / AP (Mallul testimony); Las Vegas Sun, Jan. 18, 2002.
The Boscarino conviction
The Emerald investor at the center of the mob-tie findings, Nick Boscarino — a former business partner of both Mayor Donald Stephens Sr. (in a trade-show forklift company) and, per the Gaming Board record, the mayor's son Mark Stephens (in the building-cleaning company that became part of Bomark's lineage) — was federally convicted in 2004 and sentenced to three years for an insurance scheme that cheated the Village of Rosemont out of roughly $288,670. He laundered the proceeds partly through "Ribs," a restaurant in Rosemont Village Hall. The mayor announced in December 2001 that he had severed all ties; Stephens was not accused of wrongdoing.
Campaign records add a coda the severance announcement did not cover. Boscarino personally gave $35,000 to the Bradley A. Stephens Committeeman Fund in four contributions: $10,000 on November 22, 1999 — one month after the Emerald-era fundraiser in the Gaming Board record — $10,000 in December 2000, $5,000 in August 2001, and $10,000 on December 5, 2003: two years after the mayor's public severance, and the year before Boscarino's conviction for defrauding the village. The fund belonged to the son of the man who announced the break. Documented
Chicago Tribune, May 19, 2005 ("3-year term for scamming Rosemont"); Las Vegas Sun, Jan. 18, 2002; IGB Emerald ruling (Boscarino–Mark Stephens business partnership); ISBE contributor records (elections.il.gov), "Boscarino" search, exported July 2026.
An earlier gaming memo
A 2004 Gaming Board memo alleged Mark Stephens part-owned a mob-connected temporary-labor firm; Rosemont officials said the accusations were false.
Chicago Sun-Times (2004), as cited in UIC's Suburban Corruption study.
The Ally
The machine has a friend across the aisle. The books of a Chicago Democrat's political fund read like a map of Rosemont.
James A. DeLeo — 36th Ward Democrat, Illinois House 1985–93, Senate 1993–2010, rising to Assistant Majority Leader — appears in this ledger once already: the Sun-Times identified him, in its Monterrey reporting, as a longtime ally of the Stephens family (Chapter V). Since retiring in 2010 he has been a registered lobbyist through James A. DeLeo & Associates — an assumed name of J.D. Sales, Inc., a corporation he has owned since 1999. His career is bookended by two clout stories — Operation Greylord at its start, a quietly held share of a state-debt firm in its present — and in between, his committee's own filings quantify what "ally" means. As reported Documented
reaching beyond the ward, from Rush Street to Rosemont and beyond: Jimmy.John Kass, Chicago Tribune — on DeLeo inheriting the 36th Ward operation
The Greylord file
DeLeo's public career began inside the scandal that defined the Cook County courts. In April 1987, admitted Traffic Court fixer Joseph McDermott testified at a judge's federal trial that he had bribed twenty-four Cook County judges over sixteen years, paying some through bagmen — and named one: then-Rep. James A. DeLeo, formerly a Chicago police officer assigned to Traffic Court under supervising Judge Richard LeFevour, who was by then serving fourteen years for taking bribes. DeLeo denied ever passing money for McDermott, telling reporters "a very desperate man is saying desperate things." Two years later, in July 1989, he became the first state lawmaker — and the 94th person — charged in Operation Greylord: a single count of tax evasion for 1982, a year in which he reported $19,448 in earnings while working as a Circuit Court coordinator. His attorney called him "innocent of any wrongdoing." A jury deadlocked, and DeLeo pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor tax count that spared him prison and let him keep his seat. As reported
Chicago Tribune, April 24, 1987 ("I Bribed 24 Judges, Greylord Witness Says" — McDermott testimony; DeLeo denial); UPI, July 19, 1989 (indictment; U.S. Atty. Anton Valukas; defense statement); WBEZ (via WGLT), Sept. 2024 (misdemeanor plea outcome).
The Rosemont ledger
Between 1994 and its closure in 2013, the Committee to Elect James A DeLeo raised $3.48 million — and spent an extraordinary share of it inside one Republican-run suburb:
- Rosewood Restaurant & Banquets, 9421 W. Higgins — his fundraisers' home hall (on village-owned land; Chapter VI)$171,109.84 · 38 payments
- Gibsons Steakhouse, Rosemont — finance-committee and precinct dinners, 2000–2011$33,855.52 · 122 payments
- All Rosemont establishments combined (incl. Mortons Rosemont, Capitol Grille, Rosemont Theatre)$218,523.11 · 197 payments
ISBE itemized expenditures, Committee to Elect James A DeLeo (ID 188), via Illinois Sunshine, exported July 2026.
Two-way money, twenty-five years
The alliance is mutual in the filings. The Stephens committeeman funds — Donald Sr.'s, then Bradley's — transferred to DeLeo's committee nearly every year from 1996 through 2009; DeLeo's fund gave back to the Rosemont Voters League, Friends of Mark Stephens, the Leyden Township GOP, and Bradley's committeeman fund, with matching $1,000 exchanges in the late years. His committee's itemized gifts trace a social intimacy: wedding gifts to Mr. & Mrs. Bradley Stephens and Mr. & Mrs. Chris Stephens (2008), a birthday gift to Charlie Stephens (2012), a wedding gift to Mr. & Mrs. Storino (2004). In 2007 he sponsored the Senate resolution honoring the late Donald E. Stephens. And the relationship outlived his career: in 2020, retired and lobbying, DeLeo personally gave $3,000 to the Stephens funds — $2,000 to Stephens PAC NFP, $500 to Leyden Township GOP, $500 to Brad Stephens for State Rep — a Democrat funding the House Republican leadership's committees. Documented
Shared donors, shared banks
His donor roll overlaps the Stephens donor roll name for name: Bomark Cleaning ($1,000), the Storino Ramello & Durkin firm ($4,950 over a decade), Orange Crush and Palumbo Bros. ($4,800), Heidner Properties ($800), J&J Ventures ($1,500), D&P Construction ($1,750) — the contractor the FBI identified in the Emerald record — and John J. Kelly Consulting ($1,300 in 2007), the same John Kelly who later lobbied City Hall for Monterrey. His committee's money lived at the same institutions, too: at Parkway Bank — the mayor's bank of the Emerald record — through 2006, then moved to Belmont Bank & Trust, on whose board DeLeo sits, where it opened a $429,848.79 certificate of deposit in 2007. Documented As reported
The overlap runs in the other direction, too. Receiving-side records show the Stephens family and funds and DeLeo backed sixty-six of the same committees, across both parties: Secretary of State Jesse White ($47,450 from the Stephens side; $20,000 from DeLeo), Rod Blagojevich ($5,400; $112,500), Democratic Rep. Ralph Capparelli, the Democratic Party of Illinois, the Berrios, Stroger, Daley, Cullerton, and Banks funds — and the same Italian-American Political Coalition ($14,850; $8,350). Two machines, opposite parties, one portfolio. Documented
The exit
When DeLeo closed the committee in 2013, its final disbursement — $271,681.73 — was paid to James DeLeo personally, citing 10 ILCS 5/9-8.10(11): the grandfather clause that lets funds predating mid-1998 convert to personal use. It was lawful. He kept the fund's remaining quarter-million. Documented
The present tense
The quiet-participation model continued into the 2020s. In 2024, WBEZ reported that court records in a Cook County civil suit revealed DeLeo and Republican lobbyist Nancy Kimme had each held 1% of the profits of Vendor Assistance Program LLC — a politically connected firm that buys the state's unpaid bills and pockets the late-payment penalties, collecting nearly $396 million from Illinois taxpayers over more than a decade. Per the suit, VAP and affiliates paid DeLeo hundreds of thousands of dollars between 2018 and 2022 under a 2018 agreement — an arrangement not publicly known until the court filing surfaced it. VAP denies any wrongdoing, says it was not required to disclose the deals, says DeLeo no longer works with the company, and has counter-sued the plaintiff for defamation; the judge dismissed the suit with leave to amend, and DeLeo did not respond to reporters' requests for comment. One name in VAP's founding rhymes with this ledger: the company was co-founded by Patti Solis Doyle — a sister of ex-Ald. Danny Solis, whose brother Santiago co-founded Monterrey Security, Rosemont's no-bid vendor in Chapter V. As reported
WBEZ (Dave McKinney & Dan Mihalopoulos), via WGLT, Sept. 2024 — VAP profit participation, $396M in penalties collected, Forde suit allegations, VAP's denial and defamation counter-suit, dismissal with leave to amend, Solis Doyle co-founding.
What this is, and isn't: every campaign transaction above was disclosed and lawful, and DeLeo has said he had nothing to do with the Monterrey contract. The VAP allegations are contested civil claims — denied by the company, dismissed once with leave to amend, and carrying no finding against DeLeo. County deed records show he owns no property in Rosemont — the village itself owns the district and the ground under his favorite banquet hall. What the filings document is a quarter-century, two-party, personal-and-financial alliance between the Northwest Side Democratic operation and the Rosemont machine — conducted, transaction by transaction, through the same restaurants, the same law firm, the same vendors, and the same banks.
ISBE itemized receipts & expenditures via Illinois Sunshine (Committee to Elect James A DeLeo; final disbursement 5/1/2013); ILSOS corp. #60706441 (J.D. Sales, Inc. / James A. DeLeo & Associates, Ltd.); Illinois Senate Journal, SJR0061 (2007); Chicago Sun-Times, July 26, 2019 (ally characterization; DeLeo denial); John Kass, Chicago Tribune (36th Ward succession); Chicago Sun-Times (Greylord history; misdemeanor plea); Cook County Clerk deed records (no Rosemont holdings; residence deed #1717210026).
Seventy Years on the Record
None of this is a secret. It has simply never stopped.
- 1980s
Donald Stephens Sr. is twice charged with fraud/bribery; acquitted both times.
- 1990
The village, under Donald Sr., signs a ground lease putting the Rosewood steakhouse on village-owned land — the landlord model that now underlies the entire entertainment district (Chapter VI).
- 1998
UIC's "Suburban Corruption" study documents $18M+ in Expo Center contracts to firms tied to Stephens associates, and family salaries across the government.
- 2001
Chicago Tribune: "Stephens' Wife Gets Rosemont Contracts" · "Village To Pay More On Contracts With Firm Run by Stephens' Son." The Gaming Board pulls the Emerald Casino license the same year.
- 2011
Daily Herald: "Family Connections In Rosemont Net $2 Million In Pay" — 10 Stephens relatives on payroll; 28 members of six families draw 10% of all personnel costs.
- 2012
The village opens its $40M+ entertainment district on village-owned land. Naming rights go to MB Financial, then — in 2018, in a deal the mayor negotiated directly — to Parkway Bank, at $600,000 a year.
- 2016
Trustees vote the mayor a 53% raise, to $260,000 — more than Chicago's mayor. Illinois Policy documents Bomark's ≈$4M in village cleaning payments.
- 2019
Chicago Sun-Times: FBI questions employees about the no-bid Monterrey security contract and alleged narcotics activity inside the Public Safety Department run by Donald Stephens III. No charges reported. Stephens is appointed State Representative the same summer — drawing two taxpayer salaries ($260,000 + $69,000) and telling CBS Chicago: "Is a legislator really a full-time job, a state legislator? I don't think so."
- 2020
The mayor places his nephew, Public Safety Supt. Donald E. Stephens III, on leave after department members bring concerns about his "leadership and conduct" to the mayor (Sun-Times). Stephens III resigns that November while still on leave; the Daily Herald reports crews moving his office out of Village Hall during a board meeting.
- 2023
The Economist profiles Rosemont as "the last true political machine in America."
- 2025–26
Bomark loses its four-decade arena contracts in the village's first competitive bid, and its theatre contract after Triton College — chaired by Mark Stephens — sues the village over a TIF. The mayor's brother publicly alleges retaliation; the village denies it (Daily Herald, April 2026). This ledger assembles the Byron Street corporate filings, the five-committee money map, and the 2024 payroll from the primary records.
The file, by name
A working press archive. Each entry is a published report by the named outlet; characterizations belong to those outlets. Where a matter ended without charges or with dismissal, that outcome is stated.
Bradley A. Stephens
- Chicago Sun-Times, June 21, 2019 (Mark Brown) — Rosemont run "like a family business"; relatives populate the payroll and hold vendor contracts; his father "survived two federal indictments," both acquittals.Column
- CBS Chicago, July 10, 2019 — defends holding two taxpayer-funded salaries; says he'll decline the state pension and dock mayoral pay for session days, per the Illinois Constitution.Interview
- Daily Herald, May 11, 2017 — sworn in to a new term (unopposed) alongside a 53% raise to $260,000 after a village-appointed committee deemed him "substantially undercompensated." Administering the oath: Judge Don Storino — of the firm that serves as village counsel, shares its offices with Bomark, and acts as Bomark's registered agent.Report
- Chicago Sun-Times, Oct. 4, 2020 — "Banned contractor Orange Crush, embraced by Rosemont, has given Mayor Bradley Stephens nearly $170K." The Palumbo-run firm, paid $25M+ by the village, kept its work and kept donating after affiliated companies were federally convicted and barred from government contracts.Investigation
- Wikipedia (cited reporting) — Democrats criticized his acceptance of red-light-camera contractor donations (2020); he previously served on the Illinois Tollway and Pace boards, and is now Assistant Republican Leader in the Illinois House.Background
Donald E. Stephens III
- Chicago Sun-Times, July 26, 2019 — FBI interviews employees about the department he ran: alleged painkiller distribution, steroid use, off-duty fights, and excessive-force incidents "that yielded no punishment." One source on the FBI: "They're following the money." No charges have been reported.Investigation
- Chicago Sun-Times, Sept. 23, 2020 — placed on leave by his uncle after department members raised concerns about his "leadership and conduct." A 2014 suit by a former commander alleging he was pressured "to ignore illegal activities" including steroid use was dismissed.Report
- Daily Herald, Dec. 2, 2020 — resigns Nov. 12 while still on leave; the mayor says he hasn't spoken to his nephew since the leave began.Report
- CBS Chicago, Sept. 2017 — as chief, declines FBI takeover of the nationally scrutinized Kenneka Jenkins death investigation, keeping it in-house.Statement
Mark R. Stephens
- Daily Herald, April 14–15, 2026 — Bomark loses the arena contracts in Rosemont's first competitive bid for the work; Mark alleges the village attorney invoked his Triton College conflict and calls the losses retaliation over Triton's TIF suit; the village denies it.Report
- Forest Park Review, 2006 — Bomark's co-founding "Bo," Nick Boscarino, was bought out in 1999 and later convicted in an insurance scheme that defrauded the village; Bomark shares its Village Hall–building offices with the Storino law firm, to which Mark is "of counsel."Report
- Chicago Sun-Times, 2004 — a Gaming Board memo alleged he part-owned a mob-connected temp-labor firm; Rosemont officials said the accusations were false.Disputed
Christopher Stephens
- Illinois Policy, Oct. 2018 — as Convention Center executive director, earned 545% of the typical village household's income ($255,600 avg., 2015–18, vs. <$47,000 median); out-earns every U.S. governor.Analysis
- Trade Show Executive, 2007 — named general manager of the convention center after a decade rising through Rosemont's exhibition arm; also president of the Rosemont District 78 school board and a member of the village zoning board.Profile
Donald E. Stephens Sr.
- Chicago Tribune, July 19, 2005 — "FBI links casino, Stephens, mob"; agent testimony described meetings with Outfit figures over Emerald Casino work. Twice indicted in the 1980s; acquitted both times.Investigation
- Chicago Tribune, 2001 — "Stephens' Wife Gets Rosemont Contracts" · "Village To Pay More On Contracts With Firm Run by Stephens' Son" (as cited in UIC's Suburban Corruption study).Reports
- ABC7 Chicago (Chuck Goudie), 2025 — the village unveils a statue of its "controversial late mayor."Report
What the Record Does Not Show
Honest accounting cuts both ways. These threads were examined and found unremarkable — and saying so is part of the method.
- STC Strategic Services, Ltd. ($256,000 from Leyden Twp. GOP) — owned by a River Grove resident with no identified Stephens family connection; treated as an ordinary third-party vendor.Cleared
- Friends of Mark Stephens spending — rooftop fundraisers, printing, and repayment of the candidate's own documented loans. Ordinary campaign activity.Cleared
- Friends for David B. Guerin — an allied committee whose vendor list shows no connection to the Byron Street firms.Cleared
- James W. Mandas — the village's Rosewood tenant for 25 years (Chapter VI) — made exactly one political contribution in the entire state record: $500 to a judicial candidate in 2016, and never a dollar to any Stephens fund. The landlord relationship did not run on political money.Cleared
- Rocco Suspenzi — the Parkway Bank chairman of the Emerald record — shows no personal contributions to any Stephens fund in the state database; his family's giving runs elsewhere. The Parkway relationship documented in Chapters VI and VII is contractual and historical, not campaign money.Cleared
- The Durpetti family — Gene & Georgetti, the village's newest tenants — show no Stephens-fund contributions; Tony Durpetti's only network touch is $400 to James DeLeo's committee in 2004–05, a decade before the Rosemont lease. Like Mandas before them, the tenancy did not run on political money.Cleared
- The Solis family and Brian Hynes — despite each appearing in this ledger's orbit (Monterrey; VAP) — show no contributions to any Stephens fund in their own political giving.Cleared
- One over-limit contribution was self-reported and refunded ($1,100, 2015) — the disclosure system functioning as designed.Noted
Method & Sources
Every dollar figure attributed to a committee comes from itemized D-2 disclosures filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections, exported through Illinois Sunshine (Reform for Illinois) and the Board’s own contributor database (elections.il.gov) in July 2026 and cross-referenced in full. Corporate ownership comes from Illinois Secretary of State filings. Property facts come from the Cook County Assessor, Treasurer, and Clerk (Recorder of Deeds). Payroll comes from the Village of Rosemont's own compensation report, published as required by P.A. 097-0609. Historical claims are attributed inline to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Herald, Illinois Policy Institute, UIC, Global Gaming Business, and The Economist.
Items marked Documented rest on primary government records reviewed directly. Items marked As reported rest on named journalism and carry that outlet's attribution. Items marked In progress are open questions, stated as such.