West Cook News

Illinois House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) played a role in the drawn out legal battle between the Village of Broadview and a proposed adult "gentleman's club," Chicago Joe’s Tea Room, according to a 2013 deposition of former Broadview Mayor Henry A. Vicenik.

Vicenik, who was no longer mayor at the time of the deposition, said that Durkin called to arrange a meeting between him and David Donahue, one of the principal parties behind Chicago Joe’s.

Donahue is a one-time aide to House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and former Cicero Town President Betty Loren-Maltese, who spent eight years in federal prison for stealing $12 million in city funds.

In the deposition, Vicenik said he and Donahue discussed how Vicenik, who was named personally in the lawsuit, could get out of the case. An attorney deposing Vicenik noted an earlier statement made by Vicenik that Donahue had threatened to take Broadview board members’ houses away. 

In 2007, the board voted to deny Chicago Joe’s a “special use” permit, and the court cases began and are still ongoing.

Vicenik did not return a call from West Cook News for comment. 

Durkin’s office responded to an email asking about the relationship between Durkin and Donahue with a letter from Patrick W. Walsh, a Clarendon Hills trial lawyer:  The letter in part said, “Representative Durkin does not and did not represent Mr. Donahue.”

U.S. District Court records also show that Durkin attempted to quash a subpoena to testify in a deposition. The judge denied the motion. Durkin, an attorney, represented Broadview in the mid-2000s in between stints as a House member. 

The Chicago Joe’s case is now on appeal in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, after the district court ruled in large part in Broadview’s favor.

In May 2014, Chicago’s WGN published a in-depth report of the battle between Broadview and Chicago Joe’s, and of David Donahue.

“The town (Broadview), which is not an affluent community, has spent several hundred thousand dollars in a court fight with the proposed Chicago Joe’s Tea Room,” the report said. “A guy named Joe is on the zoning application. But he’s only the front man for the politically savvy brains of the project who’d rather hide in the shadows. His name is David Donahue, a man who started as a legislative aide to powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan and learned the political trade from Ed Vrdolyak and who now politically consults dozens of candidates.”

It goes on to say that Donahue earns significant income from Chicago-area strip clubs.

“Donahue was one of the shadowy figures who used an ingenious scheme to successfully put the lucrative strip club Polekatz into another small suburb, Bridgeview. He’s using the same method to try to get Chicago Joe’s into Broadview.”

Further down the story notes that it costs a lot of money to keep the fight going in court.  

“So where does David Donahue get the money, since he only admits to making $17,000 dollars a year in a recent court deposition? He controls 99% of Chicago Joe’s ownership interest but it’s a half million dollar loan from a convicted tax cheat who funds the lawsuit.”