Feds Investigate Mayor’s Nephew and Son

City pension officials have been hit with subpoenas from a federal grand jury trying to determine how a start-up company co-owned by Mayor Daley’s nephew won $68 million in pension investments.

The grand jury issued the subpoenas Wednesday, nearly two months after city pension officials refused to comply with similar subpoenas issued by the City of Chicago’s inspector general, David Hoffman.

A federal grand jury is trying to determine how city pension officials decided to invest $68 million with a company co-owned by Mayor Daley’s nephew, Robert Vanecko.

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Hoffman said Friday that he and federal investigators are now jointly investigating the pension fund investments with DV Urban Realty Partners, a minority certified business co-owned by one of the mayor’s top African-American allies, Allison S. Davis, and Daley’s nephew Robert Vanecko.

This is the second joint investigation that Hoffman and federal authorities are conducting into Vanecko’s businesses.

The other investigation involves the hidden ownership stake Vanecko and the mayor’s son, Patrick Daley, held in a sewer-cleaning company that won millions of dollars in no-bid contract extensions from City Hall. Vanecko and Patrick Daley have said they sold their investment in the company in late 2004 when Patrick Daley enlisted in the Army and Vanecko went into business with Davis.

Memo to the International Olympic Committee – it’s hard to plan for a mega-sporting event from inside a federal prison. It may very well turn out that some of the leaders you have been dealing with here in Chicago are heading for an enforced vacation inside the slammer.