A Cook County judge has thrown out much of the breach-of-contract allegations in a lawsuit the Chicago Board of Education filed against a valet parking company co-owned by businessman James T. Weiss.
The court victory Friday in the civil case came a week after Weiss was convicted in federal court of bribing two Illinois legislators and lying to the FBI.
The lawsuit was filed three years ago by the Board of Education against Blk & Wht Valet, a company owned by Weiss and Iman Bambooyani, saying they were in breach of contract in their deal to use 10 school parking lots during off hours for paid parking. The company owed those schools more than $364,000, according to the suit.
But Judge Michael F. Otto sided largely with the parking company operators in ruling Friday that the company owes the schools only $26,208.
Otto found that Chicago Public Schools officials failed to give the company proper notice when they terminated the parking agreements at five schools, primarily around Wrigley Field.
The judge said school officials followed proper procedures in canceling the agreements at four other schools after Weiss’s company stopped paying for the right to use their lots for paid parking.
CPS is still seeking a trial regarding the lease for a 10th school, Alcott Elementary School in Lincoln Park.
A spokeswoman said CPS “is satisfied with the court’s ruling in its favor, which acknowledges that Blk & Wht Valet breached several contracts with the board” and “does not intend to appeal” the ruling against it on the other portions of the case.
But Ilia Usharovich, Weiss’s lawyer, said the ruling vindicates the parking company owners.
“There was no fraud, there was no theft or other issues,” Usharovich said. “And clearly the city breached the contracts deliberately and knowingly . . . In fact, it was Mr. Weiss and Bambooyani who decided to dismiss their counter-claims for breach of contract and told me not to counter-sue the board so that they can save money for the city and be kind despite the city breaching the contracts and terminating them improperly.”
Weiss — a son-in-law of Joseph Berrios, the former Cook County assessor who also formerly chaired the Cook County Democratic Party — was found guilty by a federal jury on June 15 of bribing then state-Rep. Luis Arroyo and then-state Sen. Terry Link to pass a law that would allow him to legally operate sweepstakes machines, which resemble video gambling machines.
The jury also found him guilty of lying to the FBI. He’s set to be sentenced Oct. 11.
Bambooyani, who once operated the Raw Bar north of Wrigley Field, was indicted last month on a federal charge that accuses him of transporting women across state lines who were then paid to have sex. He has pleaded not guilty.
CPS now leases school parking lots at more than a dozen schools to a company owned by a politically connected fundraiser for former Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
