Journal Editor

A former Chicago police detective who runs his own private detective agency will lead the Illinois Crime Commission's investigation into the awarding of billboard rights in Des Plaines and the community's involvement in trying to land a casino.

Art Hannus will lead the probe which will probably begin within the next several weeks. Hannus told the Journal Monday that he and members of the crime commission are expected to meet later this week to better define the scope of the investigation.

In the meantime, several members of a special committee have been named to work on the crime commission's inquiry into Des Plaines' billboard and casino involvement. Named to the "blue ribbon" panel are former State Senator Patrick O'Malley, former DuPage County Board President Aldo Botti, Mike Prueter, president of the Illinois Crime Commission, Mario Vescovi, former vice president of the DuPage County Crime Stoppers, and Peter Baroni, an attorney based in DuPage County. Others are expected to also be named.

Last week, the crime commission announced that it would conduct the inquiry following questions raised by several Des Plaines residents concerning billboards and the city's interest in landing the state's 10th casino.

In recent months, numerous reports have been published in the Journal about Des Plaines' agreement with Premere Outdoor, Inc. to allow the company to erect 10 billboards along the Northwest and Tri-State tollways near O'Hare Airport. It was recently learned that the shareholders of Premere Outdoor sold the rights to erect those billboards to one of the nation's largest outdoor advertising companies for $10.5 million. Half of that money was later turned over to Premere Media, Inc. when the billboard company decided not to erect five of the large signs. However, the rights to those five signs have since been sold to media giant Viacom for an undisclosed price.

What has also come to light is that convicted felon James Dvorak was one of Premere's three shareholders which sold the billboard rights. He has been a close friend of former Des Plaines acting city manager Bill Schneider who played an important role in the billboard matter. Schneider resigned his city job earlier this year after it was learned that he had been convicted of mail fraud in the mid-1990s.

"We're not going to tell anybody what to do," said Hannus. He explained that the committee will look at the casino issues researching ownerships and relationships by conducting interviews and researching documents.

In recent years, the Illinois Crime Commission has conducted a number of probes including one of the Brown's Chicken Massacre in which seven people were murdered in a Palatine eatery in the early 1990s.