The onetime elected head of the Bloomingdale Township highway commission pleaded guilty Thursday to taking $282,000 in kickbacks from the owner of an excavation company in exchange for approving contracts for road work that in many cases was never performed.
Czernek was charged in August 2020 with taking kickbacks from Debra Fazio, owner of Bloomingdale-based Bulldog Earth Movers Inc., over a period of more than eight years. The scheme began in 2012, the year Czernek was elected, and continued almost unabated for his entire time in office, according to his plea agreement with prosecutors. The only exception was 2013, an election year, when it was agreed to pause the kickbacks because Czernek “did not want to draw any scrutiny,” according to his plea agreement with prosecutors.
The notes included a description of the work and number of hours purportedly spent by Bulldog on various projects. Fazio later submitted invoices to the township that repeated Czernek’s notes word for word, according to the plea agreement.
… how much?