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Peter Nicholas "Nick" Hurtgen, 42, was arrested Monday and charged with three counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud and one count of extortion, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
Hurtgen was indicted as part of a federal probe into the powerful Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.
"This investigation has only just begun," Robert D. Grant, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Chicago office, said Monday. "Stay tuned. There will be more charges in the future."
Stuart Levine, 59, a millionaire attorney, businessman and member of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board who has pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Illinois political campaigns over the last decade, was charged in a 28-count indictment Monday with mail fraud, wire fraud, extortion and misallocation of funds.
Also charged were construction executive Jacob Kiferbaum, 52, and Hurtgen, the former managing director of the Bear Stearns & Co. investment firm's Chicago office.
Hurtgen's attorney told the Chicago Tribune: "Those charges will wither under the spotlight, and Nick will be proven innocent."
Before joining Bear Stearns in 1995, Hurtgen worked as deputy secretary in Wisconsin's Department of Administra-tion, which supervised state bond issues.
Hurtgen is a 1981 graduate of Aquinas High School in La Crosse, and attended University of Wisconsin in Madison. His parents are the late Peter G. and Mary Jean Murphy Hurtgen of La Crosse.
Thompson was an usher at Nick Hurtgen's wedding in 1993, according to the Capital Times.
According to the indictment, Levine devised a scheme with the other two men to pressure a Naperville, Ill., hospital into choosing one of his friends for $113 million in construction work and engineered a series of financial maneuvers in which millions of dollars were siphoned out of other such projects.
Prosecutors said Hurtgen hoped to get the financing on the deal for Bear Stearns.
Levine and Hurtgen were released Monday on $5 million bond. Levine was placed on house arrest with electronic monitoring.
The two men left the courthouse with their attorneys, declining to comment.
Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, now a Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor, has said Hurtgen helped him raise more than $25,000 in campaign funds in two events in Chicago in early 2003. Also in early 2003, Bear Stearns won a $100 million bond deal with Milwaukee County. Walker has said his ties to Hurtgen did not influence awarding of the bond contract.
On the Web:
www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/hot/levine.html
