Ex-state senator who did prison time over job that required ‘little to no work’ finds work on the outside — as a state lobbyist

Former Illinois state Sen. Thomas Cullerton walks with family and Lissa Druss (right) out of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse after he was sentenced to one year in prison in his embezzlement case last June. Druss recently hired Cullerton, who’s now out of prison and is a lobbyist. (Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file)

Eleven days after serving a federal prison term for corruption, a former Illinois legislator from Chicago’s western suburbs registered as a state government lobbyist last month, according to federal and state records.

Ex-state Sen. Thomas Cullerton, a Democrat from Villa Park, pleaded guilty last summer in federal court to embezzling funds from a labor union and was sentenced to more than a year in prison.