Police Board President

To get clouted into certain Department positions, you have to pass a rudimentary financial background check, purportedly to make sure you aren't susceptible to bribery. Clout can get you around it of course, but you'd think someone in an actual position of responsibility might have a bit stricter check done on them:

• Ghian Foreman is Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s handpicked Police Board president and a prominent Chicago real estate developer. In 2005, he borrowed $50,000 from Karyn Usher’s mother to help finance a Bronzeville condominium project. The units sold but the Usher family has waited 13 years to be paid.
  
  “He owes this money and I want him to pay this money,” Usher says.
  
  Usher says her family was close with Foreman’s, the reason her then 73-year-old mother, Ann Marie Usher, entered into a legal limited partnership and loaned Foreman the money. “Mother had known them all her life and so she, of course, wanted to help Ghian,” Usher says.
  
  Foreman rehabbed the four condos and sold three for a total of more than $1 million. By 2007, he owned the fourth and final unit free and clear. Usher’s attorney says Foreman could’ve paid off the debt. “There were proceeds from these sales,” says Phyllis Price. “[But} Ms. Usher got not a dime.”

Mrs. Usher died some time ago without receiving any of the loan repaid. Her estate isn't happy and we have to say that someone with that sort of outstanding debt is definitely susceptible to all sorts of outside pressure.