{"id":211076,"date":"2025-09-08T20:57:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-08T20:57:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/211076\/"},"modified":"2025-09-08T20:57:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-08T20:57:15","slug":"guilty-plea-set-for-former-aide-to-ex-ald-carrie-austin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/211076\/","title":{"rendered":"Guilty plea set for former aide to ex-Ald. Carrie Austin"},"content":{"rendered":"

A onetime top aide to former Ald. Carrie Austin is set to plead guilty to bribery charges next month alleging they solicited home improvement perks from a developer seeking Austin\u2019s influence at City Hall.<\/p>\n

Chester Wilson, 59, was indicted along with Austin more than four years ago on charges of bribery and theft of government funds. He had been scheduled to go to trial in November. However, at a brief status hearing Monday, the parties informed U.S. District Judge John Kness that a plea agreement had been reached in the case.<\/p>\n

Kness set a change of plea hearing for Oct. 29. Wilson\u2019s attorneys were not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n

The development comes two months after Kness ruled that Austin, now 76, was medically unfit to stand trial<\/a>. She represented the 34th Ward in the City Council for more than 30 years before stepping down in 2023. Wilson served as her longtime chief of staff.<\/p>\n

According to the 2021 indictment<\/a>, Austin and Wilson shepherded a new real estate development through City Hall bureaucracy beginning in 2016 and were given home improvement perks from a developer seeking to influence them.<\/p>\n

Between them, Austin and Wilson allegedly got new kitchen cabinets, granite countertops, bathroom tiling, sump pumps and an HVAC system for free or at a discount.<\/p>\n

The developer, Boris Nitchoff, has since died. His son, Alex, pleaded guilty to separate charges of bribing an employee of the Cook County assessor\u2019s office and was sentenced to five years<\/a> in prison.<\/p>\n

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com<\/p>\n

Originally Published: September 8, 2025 at 12:12 PM CDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A onetime top aide to former Ald. Carrie Austin is set to plead guilty to bribery charges next…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":126361,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5295,5386,1818,1370,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-211076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115170682385575708","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}