Not sure which is more disturbing about the Loren-Maltese/Water Reclamation District controversy

Federal agents discovered a fully loaded automatic weapon, a Glock, in the confiscated former Las Vegas home of convicted felon Betty Loren-Maltese.

I don't know which is worse, that Loren-Maltese had the Glock in her possession at the home where she stayed following her release from prison, or worse, that the gun belonged to the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, an agency that spends billions to do a poor job of managing flooding caused by heavy rains.

It's one of the typically bizarre stories that surrounds Loren-Maltese, a former dancer turned politician and wife to a former mobster.

It's not surprising that Loren-Maltese, now on parole after she was released from prison for her role in an insurance scam that stole more than $12 million from Cicero taxpayers over a three year period while she was the Town President in the early 1990s. (It was the discovery of that crime that prompted me to break with her as her political consultant and media spokesperson, and then spend my time helping the FBI put her away.)

Loren-Maltese never accepts blame for anything and she always blames everything on everyone else. So who is surprised that the former convicted felon is now saying that she was "set up" by someone, that someone planted the weapon in her home.

It was wrapped up in a pair of her old jeans. Making the story more bizarre -- everything about Loren-Maltese is bizarre, believe me -- is the fact that this occurred sometime back in 2010 while she was cleaning out the home and was being "assisted" by federal agents in Las Vegas.

I didn't know that federal agents in Las Vegas also worked as furniture movers for convicts. That's strange.

Loren-Maltese was convicted in 2002 and released on February 26, 2010, about the same time she went to the home hoping to keep it. The feds took the home and she spent the next many months in a Las Vegas halfway house before moving to a Chicago suburb where she now spends most of her time bashing and lying about her crimes and her "enemies" on her very entertaining Facebook page.

Why did the story come out now?

But it even gets more peculiar. The gun was traced back to the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, an agency that spends billions to do basically nothing but blame everyone else for their failure to confront area wide flooding. The MWRD built this giant "deep tunnel" to take flood waters away from communities, but the deep tunnel is often filled to near maximum and when it rains, the rain waters have no place to go.

Even more shocking to me and it should be shocking to the public and the taxfpayers who fund the high-flying, high priced life of the board's do-nothing commissioners is that the MWRD carries an aresenal of automatic weapons and Glocks.

WGN TV reported on the story:

"That automatic glock was fully loaded and unregistered-- but the manufacturer traced the sale back to Illinois and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. It's an agency with 66 sworn police officers charged with watching and protecting Chicago’s water assets-- and yes, they are assigned weapons-- glocks."

Are you kidding me? What does the MWRD need automatic weapons and Glocks for? To protect their failed flood water strategy from being stolen by terrorists like al-Qaeda?

The idea that one of the 66 "sworn" police who work for the MWRD (let's call them expensive security personnel, not police) may have moved the gun to Las Vegas or to someone who knows Loren-Maltese or who had access to the federally managed home while she was in the hoosegow should be even more disturbing to the public.

But don't expect answers. We can't expect services from the MWRD. Flooding continues to plague all of the suburbs of Chicagoland across the board. We can't expect any truth from Betty Loren-Maltese who is notorious for many things but is a pathological liar. Loren-Maltese will lie to gain any kind of sympathy as she lives her remaining life in a purgatory of shame. And we can't expect a better reported story -- this was one of the most incomplete reportings I have seen in 35 years of journalism.

What we can't expect is exactly what we should expect when a news story like this scratches it's way to our online Google alert in boxes.

-- Ray Hanania
www.TheMediaOasis.com