Joseph Cari and Steven Loren saw gold in Illinois teachers’ union pensions. Where the two Chicago lawyers went wrong was trying to mine it. On September 15, 2005 the pair pleaded guilty in federal court to charges related to an ongoing criminal probe into pension kickbacks involving the Teachers Retirement System (TRS) for the State of Illinois. The system, with more than $30 billion in assets, serves hundreds of thousands of active and retired school employees represented by the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Illinois Education Association – unions, respectively, affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. Cari and Loren, free on bail, now are helping the prosecution, apparently willing to testify against a bigger fish, who like them,
