Final Justice by Wayne Klatt

About the book

"I love people that take dough, you know exactly where they stand."
-- Narcotics Court Judge Wayne Olson

This is a true, inside story of one-man's effort to clean up possibly the most corrupt court system in America.

Outrage over the bribed acquittal of notorious hitman Harry Aleman had led to the most extensive undercover operation in U.S. history, and most of it depended on idealistic young prosecutor Terry Hake. Terry, who was about to get married, started offering favors for bribes and helped the Justice Department plant the first microphone ever hidden in a judge's chambers. Next he became a defense attorney so that he could pay off other judges.

Under the pressures of a Cold War spy, Terry was continually using his wits to deflect suspicion and plan ways of gathering evidence. Along the way, he was shocked to discover that his closest friend in the courts was one of the fixers. Terry also organized a "school" for undercover FBI agents to stage crimes that might bring him before corrupt judges. When rumors of an investigation reached mob lawyer Dean Wolfson, he said, "If I find out it's Terry, I'll kill him."

An investigation that was to last only a few months continued for more than three years, and during the trials a top defense attorney was able to break Terry down on the stand. But all his work paid off with the prosecution of fifty-five attorneys and twenty-three judges, including the first American jurist ever convicted of taking bribes to acquit killers. Climaxing the operation, the U.S. Supreme Court held that mob hitman Harry Aleman could be tried again for the murder that sparked the investigation. But before Aleman was convicted in nineteen ninety-seven, the judge who took a bribe at his original trial committed suicide rather than testify.

The Chicago Council of Lawyers honored Terry for "breaking the conspiracy of silence." But he was shunned by other lawyers as a turncoat, and he knew he could never practice law in Cook County again.

His story, Final Justice, should interest the general public, with its eagerness to read fictional accounts of court life, as well as thousands of police officers, judges, lawyers and law students. Although there were two early books on some aspects of Operation Greylord, one had limited distribution and the other was a paste-up job filled with errors. This is the only inside account of undercover work from beginning to its dramatic, precedent-shattering end.

About the author

Wayne Klatt is known for his versatility as a writer of fiction, factual books, and a collaborator. He was born in Chicago in 1940 and received a bachelor's degree from the University of Illinois in 1962, with minors in psychology and history. He has worked since then at the City News Service of Chicago as a reporter, news writer and editor. In his spare time he has done research on pathological crimes for a forensic psychiatrist.

Klatt's children's stories and articles appeared in "Young World" and "Child's Life," and he has sold jokes to Joan Rivers.

Klatt worked with journalist Gera-Lind Kolarik on two true-crime books, "Freed to Kill" and "I Am Cain." He later worked with former FBI agent Terry Hake on a book about Hake's three years of working undercover to expose corruption in the Chicago courts, "The Sleep of Justice." The manuscript is being considered by the University of Chicago Press.

Klatt has returned to his first love of fiction. Two agents have expressed an interest in a comedy-romance film script he has written, "Ill Never Fall in Love Again," and another agent is Green Bay Tree," and is writing another, "Night of Reckoning."