Chicago Park Briber Gets Prison Time

A landscape contractor who pleaded guilty in October to bribing a city official to get millions of dollars of contracts for Chicago's Millennium Park and other city-owned property was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison.

Michael Lowecki, 47, had admitted that he bribed Shirley McMayon with cash, vacations, car payments and other kickbacks to secure $8 million in Chicago Park District work for his Mundelein-based business, James Michael Inc.

McMayon was sentenced Monday to 34 months in prison. John Kevin Haas, the former chief operations officer of Lowecki's firm, has been sentenced to 20 months.

McMayon, the Park District's former director of natural resources, admitted that she accepted $137,000 in payments from Lowecki's company.

Unlike McMayon and Haas, Lowecki did not cut a cooperation deal with prosecutors when he pleaded guilty. He could have received up to 5 years in prison.

U.S. District Judge David Coar told Lowecki he thought Lowecki had learned his lesson.

"I hope, unless you're just stupid, that you'll never be in another courtroom again," Coar said, but added he still needed to send a significant message of deterrence with the sentence.

Lowecki told the judge he has tried to live his life with integrity and apologized to the court, the government and the people of Chicago for his conduct. He said that he "walks in shame" in his Libertyville community and that his family has suffered.

"I have no one to blame but myself," Lowecki told the judge, adding that he lost a business he had started in college and "subjected my wife and children to public embarrassment."

According to Lowecki's plea, he and Haas first bribed McMayon in May 2000 when they sent her on a trip to the Wisconsin Dells. That same year, they bought McMayon two tickets to a Green Bay Packers game.

In December 2000, Lowecki paid for McMayon and her two children to stay at a ski resort in Michigan.

That year, Lowecki's firm got the bulk of the Park District's $6.8 million landscaping contract, according to the plea agreement.

The bribes were paid for two reasons: To make sure James Michael was among the companies qualified to receive Park District work and to ensure the firm received a disproportionate share of that work, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Nancy Miller.

Bribes and kickbacks from Lowecki to McMayon continued through 2004, during which time the landscaping company netted $8 million in Park District funds.