When a federal judge sentenced former Summit police chief John Kosmowski on Wednesday to three years in prison for bribery, conspiracy and obstruction of justice, he quoted the former top suburban cop’s recorded words right back at him.
A secret government cooperator caught Kosmowski in 2022 insisting “there is no truth,” and “it’s gonna be their version against ours. It always is.”
U.S. District Judge Steven Seeger told him Wednesday, “you sounded like a gangster. Who talks like that? … Who says that?”
“Here’s the bottom line,” Seeger told him, seven months after Kosmowski’s conviction by a jury. “You took a bribe, and you tried to cover it up. The evidence at trial was compelling. The evidence was strong. The case wasn’t close.”
The judge also complained about the steady drumbeat of public corruption cases that have hit his courtroom and others at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, insisting “there must be something in the water in Lake Michigan that makes Chicago a breeding ground for corruption.”
“How on Earth has the message not gotten out in the Chicagoland area, to public officials, that they cannot take bribes?” Seeger said. “I don’t understand why public corruption has so deeply infested the body politic in this town. I don’t get it.”
Kosmowski displayed no obvious reaction when Seeger announced the sentence, though a cry went up from the gallery on his side of the courtroom, where several relatives and supporters had gathered.
Defense attorney Thomas Leinenweber tried to convince Seeger to give Kosmowski a year of home detention instead, arguing that Kosmowski had already lost his career and livelihood, his reputation, and a pension worth $3 million.
Before he was sentenced, Kosmowski told the judge “there is not a day that goes by that I do not think about those decisions and the disappointment they have caused. … What has been most difficult for me is knowing that these actions are inconsistent with the way I’ve tried to live my life.”
Kosmowski, 58, spent more than 30 years with the Summit police department, according to Leinenweber. Kosmowski also spent more than a decade of his career as a Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer, playing a role in an investigation of the Sinaloa drug cartel, Leinenweber wrote in a court filing.
Seeger told Kosmowski, “it was impactful to me how you’ve conducted your life as a whole, your entire life’s work.”
Still, the judge added, “I was thinking about giving you a higher sentence.”
Seeger is the same judge who gave a nearly five-year prison sentence to former state Rep. Luis Arroyo, and a five-and-a-half year sentence to businessman James T. Weiss, for a separate bribery scheme that revolved around gambling legislation in Springfield.
The case against Kosmowski began when a grand jury handed up an indictment against him and Summit building inspector William Mundy in 2022, alleging the men conspired in 2017 to use their influence with Summit Village President Sergio Rodriguez to help bar owner Krzystof Hodurek secure a liquor license transfer.
Grand jury subpoenas went out early in March 2022, records show. Then, on March 14, 2022, Kosmowski confronted Mundy outside a wake. That’s when Kosmowski made the comments that caught Seeger’s attention.
Mundy was recording as Kosmowski asked, “what’s going on with this thing with [Hodurek]” and said, “we didn’t do anything for him. Remember that.”
“What if he tells the f—ing truth?” Mundy asked.
“What?” Kosmowski replied. “There is no truth.”
Mundy testified that he and Kosmowski agreed to split a $10,000 bribe from Hodurek. But Kosmowski insisted to Mundy in 2022 that he’d actually repaid a $7,000 “loan” from Hodurek.
“Here’s the thing,” Kosmowski went on to tell Mundy. “No matter what we say, remember this: It’s gonna be their version against ours. It always is.”
Mundy pleaded guilty in 2023 to a bribery conspiracy and filing a false tax return. He then took the stand when Kosmowski went to trial in December, calling Kosmowski’s story about a loan “bullsh–.”
Though jurors didn’t hear it during Kosmowski’s trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Hasten also told the judge about a recording in which Kosmowski allegedly referred to a government cooperator as “a little rat.”
Seeger told Kosmowski, “I’m not saying it’s going to affect my sentence. I don’t think it will.”
Still, he added, “it’s not a resume builder.”
“I don’t think it’s a great sign of character to refer to a government cooperator as ‘a little rat’ when you are the chief of police,” Seeger told him. “Who does that? That’s how gangsters talk.”