IN LATE SEPTEMBER THE CITY OF CHICAGO Inspector General’s office disclosed that the first deputy of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, Jim Argiropoulos had issued a bogus contract for 18,000 spare parts from Motorola and spent the $2.25 million on a radio console upgrade that was never built.  See the Firegeezer report HERE from September 29.  At the time, the IG recommended that Argiropoulos be fired from his $149,832-a-year job.

On Tuesday it was announced that he has resigned to avoid being fired.  He cleaned out his desk over the weekend and has departed while using up his leave until the end of this month.  By resigning, he is protecting his  pension which could be jeopardized if he was fired.  He also stands to lose it if he is convicted of a felony related to his office.

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting:

The alleged irregularities took place in 2004 and 2005 while Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman was running OEMC.

Huberman has accepted responsibility for what the inspector general has called a “significant management failure” that set the stage for the contracting scheme.

Sources said he has also ordered Adrienne Hiegel, his top deputy at OEMC at the time, to take a 30-day suspension.

The inspector general’s office has said Hiegel was so complicit in the phony voucher scheme, she should be fired if she still worked for the city. She was specifically accused of directing underlings to “work backwards to get to $2.25 million — the cost of developing the Motorola software — by using 18,000 radio parts to add up to” the same amount.

On the surface, it appears that there could still be a chance of a criminal charge arising from this scheme.

Read the full STORY HERE.