Are these documents the reason Gery Chico won't answer questions about the Save-A-Life Foundation?

Gery Chico accepts award from SALF founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri, reportedly a twice-convicted shoplifter who claimed non-existent medical credentials and a bogus college degree. (Source document here.)

At the end of last year, political writer Lee Cary asked Gery Chico a few non-confrontational questions about the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), the Chicago-area nonprofit reportedly under investigation by the IL Attorney General and, according to this letter, also by the feds.

Lee wanted to know what the man who wants to be Chicago's next mayor had to say about investigations of an organization with which Chico and his wife were affiliated. Click here and here for Lee's letters, in which he asked Chico these questions: 

1. Have you or has anyone you know been contacted by anyone connected with the Attorney General’s investigation of the Save-A-Life Foundation? If so, please provide details.

2. In federal reports, Save-A-Life claimed it had used a portion of $3.33 million it received from the US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to train thousands of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students. However, in response to a federal subpoena and FOIA requests, CPS apparently has no supporting records. Do you recommend that the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services initiate an investigation to determine if those federal millions were properly administered?

3. CPS paid Save-A-Life approximately $62,000 in public funds to provide first aid training to thousands of students, however CPS records indicate that at best a few hundred may have received training.  Do you recommend that CPS Inspector General James M. Sullivan initiate an investigation to determine if the $62,000 paid by CPS to Save-A-Life was properly administered?

Not exactly tough, in-your-face questions for a guy who's campaigning on a pledge to "bring more openness, transparency and accountability (to) city government." Nevertheless, despite multiple inquiries to his law firm and to his campaign office, Chico has not responded.

Since then, other documents have surfaced that may indicate why Chico seems to be playing dodge 'em. Yesterday, Lee sent Chico some new questions centering around those documents (inserted below).

From: Lee Cary <lee.cary@att.net>
Subject: media inquiry
To: gchico@chiconunes.com, gery@gerychicoformayor.com
Cc: brooke@gerychicoformayor.com
Date: Wednesday, January 26, 2011, 5:37 PM

Sent via e-mail and faxed to (312)463-1001

Gery Chico
Chico & Nunes, P.C.
333 West Wacker Drive Suite 1800
Chicago, IL 60606

Dear Mr. Chico,

I recently sent inquiries to you and to your associates Paul Vallas and Carlos Azcoitia PhD regarding your affiliations and promotion of the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF), a Chicago-area nonprofit reportedly under investigation by the IL Attorney General's Charitable Trust Bureau.

Despite multiple attempts, to date I've only received a response from Dr. Azcoitia. If your lack of response was an oversight, I'd appreciate receiving your answers to the three questions I asked you. I'd also appreciate your answers to these questions:

1) According to SALF, you served as a member of their organization's Board of Directors. Is that accurate? If so, please provide details.

Click here for source document, 2002 SALF Annual Report

2) According to SALF, in a speech you presented at their organization's annual conference (at which your wife Sunny also appeared as a participant), you stated that you “will fight for the SALF programs and that their training is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.” Is this accurate?

Click here for source document, September 2003 SALF "Bridge the Gap" Conference

A SALF press release quoted your wife as saying, "My husband Gery was instrumental in bringing SALF to the Chicago Public Schools."

Click here for source document, April 24, 2003 SALF press release

3) Would you please ask your wife if she was accurately quoted and let me know what she says?

4) Do you consider the quote to be accurate or inaccurate? Please explain.

Thanks for your continued attention and I look forward to your reply. In the event I don't receive a reply from you in the next few days, I'll follow-up with Mrs. Chico.

Sincerely,

Lee Cary
Little Elm, TX

Cc: Brooke Anderson, Gery Chico for Mayor

But wait, there's more. According to SALF, Chico (and Arne Duncan, now US Secretary of Education) helped draft the organization's 2002 "Pre-EMS White Paper":

Click here for source document (undated but file creation date is 12/26/02)

It's obvious that Chico is under no obligation to answer questions about his relationship with SALF and presumably he doesn't want to open the door to the subject by responding to inquiries from Lee Cary, a blogger from the Lone Star State.

But the Chicago mayoral derby has at least another month to play out. Will one of Chico's competitors or a MSM reporter raise the subject of his ties to an organization that may have ripped-off million$ from Illinois and US taxpayers?

The answer to that question is also obvious. It's up to them.
1/26/11 questions to Gery Chico re: whether he was a member of Save-A-Life Foundation corporate board; his ...

Did Save-A-Life rip off Carpentersville, Illinois? If so, maybe Rita Mullins can help locate the missing funds!

From 2009 Citizens for Mullins re-election campaign (click here for complete bio)

"I know (the Save-A-Life Foundation) to be a very well-run organization.”

That's what Rita Mullins, then-mayor of Palatine, Illinois and Save-A-Life's Director of Government Affairs, told the Daily Herald, according to a May 9, 2007 article.

Based on the following letters, city officials and business owners in the neighboring village of Carpentersville might disagree.

Here's a June 18, 2008 letter from Bill Sarto, then-mayor of Carpentersville, to Carrie Viehweg, Save-A-Life's Illinois State Director. Mayor Sarto's letter included $4,200 in donation checks from local businesses (payable to Save-A-Life), contracting the organization to provide first aid training classes to students in the Carpentersville schools.
Carpentersville Mayor Bill Sarto sends $4200 to Save-A-Life Foundation's Carrie Viehweg, 6/18/08

Was Mayor Sarto was aware that two years before, Save-A-Life had been the subject of four scorching exposes by ABC Chicago? Did Ms. Viehweg or any other Save-A-Life representatives inform him about those reports so that he could inform donors? If so, Mayor Sarto gave no indication in a June 16, 2008 blog in which he hyped the program: 

Through the generosity of several of our local businesses we now have the seed money to begin the program. We have raised over $5,000.00 toward this worthwhile endeavor.

Hey, wait a minute. If over $5,000 was raised for "this worthwhile endeavor," how come Mayor Sarto only sent $4,200 to Ms. Viewheg a couple of days later?

Dunno, but per this letter they both signed, Mayor Sarto and Ms. Viehweg then went shopping for more funding. Note their claim that "more than a million school-aged children and youth have" received first aid training from Save-A-Life. Does anyone have any records to back up that claim? (Hello, Ms. Viehweg? Ms. Mullins?):
$5000 grant request from Carpentersville Mayor Bill Sarto & SALF's Carrie Viehweg, 8/25/08

A year later, based on this October 22, 2009 financial reimbursement demand and seeming legal threat from Carpentersville Fire Chief John Schuldt to Save-A-Life's founder/president Carol Spizzirri, the deal had gone waaaay south:
Carpentersvile Fire Chief demands return of funds from Save-A-Life Foundation, 10/22/09

It's not known if Chief Schuldt recovered the money or if he asked Save-A-Life's second-in-command Rita Mullins to help him to reimburse the Carpentersville donors.

Six months before his letter, Mullins was defeated by a landslide in her 2009 re-election bid. On October 22, 2009, the Village of Palatine held a dedication ceremony to re-name a local landmark as "Rita L. Mullins Volunteer Plaza" for her 20 years of service as mayor.

Coincidentally, that's the same date as the chief's demand letter to Mullins's "very well run" organization.

According to the October 11, 2009 Chicago Tribune, Mullins is now partners in a new business venture with her "close friend" Carol Spizzirri (page down for photo gallery).

According to the November 17, 2010 San Diego Reader, Spizzirri - who now lives in a mobile home park in San Marcos, California - is a twice-convicted shoplifter whose daughter filed a protective order against her that included allegations of physical abuse.

According to recent reports in The Hill and other news outlets, the Save-A-Life Foundation is being investigated by the Illinois Attorney General's Charitable Trusts Bureau.

Save-A-Life founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri consoles Rita Mullins after losing her 20-year Palatine mayor, Election Night 2009

Business partners Rita Mullins & Carol Spizzirri, March 2010

Save-A-Life Director Dane Neal, Carol Spizzirri, ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Rita Mullins

Carol Spizzirri, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Rita Mullins

IL Secretary of State Jesse White & Rita Mullins (center), Carol Spizzirri (right) 

Fraud whistleblower asks Chicago Schools Inspector General to review Save-A-Life/Ronald McDonald House program

Ronald McDonald, SALF president Carol Spizzirri (reportedly a twice-convicted shoplifter with fabricated medical & educational credentials), and Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan, who reportedly called Spizzirri "one of my heroes."

Medical fraud whistleblower Peter Heimlich has asked the Inspector General of the Chicago Public Schools to determine if approximately $62,000 paid by the schools to the Save-A-Life Foundation (SALF) was properly administered.

Peter is the son of Dr. Henry J. Heimlich, developer of the Heimlich maneuver, the abdominal thrust treatment for someone who's choking. According to an ABC Chicago I-Team report, Dr. Heimlich was a medical advisor to SALF until he was "stripped of his position" three years ago.

In a letter yesterday, the younger Heimlich also asked Inspector General James Sullivan to "determine the veracity of claims made by SALF in order to advance their organization as a CPS vendor and to obtain CPS funding."

According a recent article in The Hill, "Save-A-Life, which provides first-aid training classes to school students, is under investigation by the Illinois Attorney General's Charitable Trusts Bureau."

From Heimlich's eight-page letter. Click here to download a copy; page to the end of this item for a viewable copy:

In response to a 2009 federal court subpoena and subsequent FOIA requests for any and all SALF training records, the Chicago Board of Education and CPS produced the following documents: a May 26, 1999 School Board resolution; 22 invoices with corresponding purchase orders dated from 2000-2007; an August 5, 2005 letter to Schools CEO Arne Duncan from SALF founder/president Carol J. Spizzirri accompanying a six-page grant application; and a December 8, 2005 letter from Mr. Duncan to Ms. Spizzirri approving the grant request.

This paucity of records, combined with the concerns discussed below, raises legitimate questions regarding whether or not SALF fulfilled the obligations contracted by and paid for by CPS.

8/5/05 "Dear Arne" letter, grant request for SALF's CPS/McDonald's program

12/8/05 "Dear Carol" letter from Arne Duncan approving SALF/Ronald McDonald House program

Arne Duncan awards $49K Chicago Schools funds to Save A Life Foundation

Ronald McDonald House Charities awards $87,500 to Save-A-Life Foundation, 2004-06

The federal court subpoena results may have been documents obtained by Chicago attorney Wayne Giampietro who represented Heimlich and two other individuals in a failed defamation lawsuit filed by SALF in 2007. According to a July 14, 2009 Cincinnati CityBeat report by Kevin Osborne:

An Illinois-based organization dropped its defamation lawsuit this month against local blogger Jason Haap and two other critics. The two-year-old case was widely viewed as having the potential to set a precedent involving First Amendment protections for online commentary.

Attorneys for the Save-a-Life Foundation filed a motion for voluntary dismissal July 7 in federal court, and U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly granted it two days later.

In the lawsuit, Save-a-Life had alleged that (blogger Jason) Haap, Peter Heimlich and Dr. Robert Baratz conspired to harm the foundation’s reputation by distributing false information to agencies that fund it, as well as serving as sources for a derogatory report on Save-a-Life that aired on WLS-TV, Chicago’s ABC affiliate...The Save-a-Life case was the eighth most-viewed case on a Harvard Law School-affiliated Web site that monitors Internet-related free speech cases.

In an October 16, 2009 follow-up, Osborne reported that "The Save-a-Life Foundation filed (dissolution) papers with the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office on Sept. 17. The action ends the existence of the 16-year-old corporation."

Heimlich was interviewed by Brian Ross in a 2007 ABC 20/20 report about his father, Dr. Heimlich's New 'Maneuver': Cure AIDS With Malaria.

On his MedFraud website, Peter Heimlich is soliciting information for a book he's writing. The list of topics includes the Save-A-Life Foundation and Carol Spizzirri, who, according to a recent San Diego Reader article, is now living in a mobile home park in San Marcos, California.

Dane Neal of SALF, Dr. Heimlich, Ciprina Spizzirri, Carol Spizzirri at the White House (2005) 


Heimlich request to Chicago Schools Inspector General to review Save-A-Life funding, 1/5/11