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Moon Alert

After 9 a.m. Chicago time, there are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions. The moon is in Cancer.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

With Mercury retrograde taking place directly opposite your sign, you are bound to hear from or run into ex-partners and old friends. In some cases, these people will show up in your dreams. This could be an opportunity for closure or clarification. “Go! And never darken my towels again!” (Groucho Marx.)

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

This particular Mercury retrograde will be a bit maddening for you until mid-October, because it will encourage mistakes, goofy errors, delays, mixed-up communications and misplaced paperwork related to your job, your health and even your pet. Patience is your best ally!

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Because Mercury is your ruler, you feel every Mercury retrograde. This current Mercury retrograde is from now until mid-October. (Oy!) Expect silly errors, delays and cancellations with socializing, sports and the entertainment world. Old business with kids might be back on your plate. Old flames might also be on the scene.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

The next month is an excellent time for family reunions and get-togethers because Mercury retrograde will attract family members you haven’t seen for a while. They might be sleeping on your sofa and eating from your fridge. Good luck!

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

For the next month, transportation delays might dog your steps — car problems, truck problems and bike problems. Be proactive and address anything that looks dicey. Missed buses and confused communications are also classic due to Mercury retrograde. Courage!

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Mercury retrograde could create some delays and mistakes related to money, cash flow, or earnings, as well as anything that you own, i.e., your movable possessions. Checks in the mail will be late. Be careful with all your financial transactions. Be alert!

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Mercury retrograde is in your sign now until mid-October, which means you will encounter delays, mixed-up communications, missed appointments, misplaced items, goofy mistakes and also run into people from your past. It’s like you’re caught in a tape loop. (Twilight Zone riff here.)

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

You are one of the signs that this current Mercury retrograde might help — a bit. You might still suffer from goofy mistakes and transportation delays; nevertheless, Mercury retrograde will help you to do research and discover answers from the past. Use it!

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

Many of you will hear from old friends or members of groups whom you have not been in touch with for a while because of Mercury retrograde. It’s good to have history with others. This is your chance to get together and trade lies about the bad old days.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

Because of the influence of Mercury retrograde, you might dream about or think about parents you haven’t seen for a while. You might also run into old bosses from the past — authority figures. This could be an opportunity to rethink things or clarify something.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

This particular Mercury retrograde can be helpful to you because for the next few weeks. It will make it easier for you to finish papers, manuscripts and anything that you are studying or learning, especially at school. It will also help you wrap up legal matters and anything to do with medicine.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

Expect delays and confusion in matters related to taxes, debt, inheritances and shared property. However, this is an excellent time (until mid-October) to check details in these areas and redo things. Not only can you improve or redo something, you can also check for past errors that could cause problems in the future.

If Your Birthday Is Today

Actress Hilary Duff (1987) shares your birthday. You are optimistic and enthusiastic about life. You are also kind, caring and generous. Your strength is that you stick to your convictions because you believe in yourself. This is a year of service for you, which means you have to take care of yourself so that you are a good resource for others. You will improve your image this year.

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A man was fatally shot Monday afternoon in West Pullman on the Far South Side.

The 27-year-old was in the 200 block of East 121st Street about 6:20 p.m. when someone opened fire, Chicago police said.

He was shot in the head and was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead. His name hasn’t been released.

No one is in custody.

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NEW YORK — R. Kelly, the R&B superstar known for his anthem “I Believe I Can Fly,” was convicted Monday in a sex trafficking trial after decades of avoiding criminal responsibility for numerous allegations of misconduct with young women and children.

A jury of seven men and five women found Kelly, 54, guilty of all nine counts, including racketeering, on their second day of deliberations. Kelly wore a face mask below black-rimmed glasses, remaining motionless with eyes downcast, as the verdict was read in federal court in Brooklyn.

Prosecutors alleged that the entourage of managers and aides who helped Kelly meet girls — and keep them obedient and quiet — amounted to a criminal enterprise. Two people have been charged with Kelly in a separate federal case pending in Chicago.

He faces the possibility of decades in prison for crimes including violating the Mann Act, an anti-sex trafficking law that prohibits taking anyone across state lines “for any immoral purpose.” Sentencing is scheduled for May 4.

One of Kelly’s lawyers, Deveraux Cannick, said he was disappointed and hoped to appeal.

“I think I’m even more disappointed the government brought the case in the first place, given all the inconsistencies,” Cannick said.

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said in a statement Monday, “This is the first step in a long journey towards justice and healing for many victims of these crimes. Without their bravery and courage, this outcome would not be possible.”

“It is my sincere hope that today’s verdict brings some form of closure and consolation, and sends a strong message to predators that one’s celebrity status will not shield them from the law,” Foxx said.

Several accusers testified in lurid detail during the trial, alleging that Kelly subjected them to perverse and sadistic whims when they were underage.

For years, the public and news media seemed to be more amused than horrified by allegations of inappropriate relationships with minors, starting with Kelly’s illegal marriage to the R&B phenom Aaliyah in 1994 when she was just 15.

His records and concert tickets kept selling. Other artists continued to record his songs, even after he was arrested in 2002 and accused of making a recording of himself sexually abusing and urinating on a 14-year-old girl.

Widespread public condemnation didn’t come until a widely watched docuseries, “Surviving R. Kelly,” helped make his case a signifier of the #MeToo era, and gave voice to accusers who wondered if their stories were previously ignored because they were Black women.

“To the victims in this case, your voices were heard and justice was finally served,” Acting U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis said Monday.

U.S. Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis speaks to the press on the guilty verdict of R. Kelly at the Brooklyn Federal Court House on Monday, Sept. 27, 2021, in New York.AP

Gloria Allred, a lawyer for some of Kelly’s accusers, said outside the courthouse that of all the predators she’s gone after — a list including Harvey Weinstein and Jeffrey Epstein — “Mr. Kelly is the worst.”

At the trial, several of Kelly’s accusers testified without using their real names to protect their privacy. Jurors were shown homemade videos of Kelly engaging in sex acts that prosecutors said were not consensual and became part of his personal “porn” collection.

The defense labeled the accusers “groupies” and “stalkers.”

Kelly’s lawyer, Cannick, questioned why women stayed in relationships with Kelly if they thought they were being exploited.

“You made a choice,” Cannick told one woman who testified, adding, “You participated of your own will.”

Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, has been jailed without bail since in 2019. The New York case is only part of the legal peril facing the singer. He also has pleaded not guilty to sex-related charges in Illinois and Minnesota. Trial dates in those cases have yet to be set.

At the trial, prosecutors painted the singer as a pampered man-child and control freak. His accusers said they were under orders to call him “Daddy,” expected to jump and kiss him anytime he walked into a room, and to cheer only for him when he played pickup basketball games in which they said he was a ball hog.

The accusers alleged they were ordered to sign nondisclosure forms and were subjected to threats and punishments such as violent spankings if they broke what one referred to as “Rob’s rules.” Some said they believed the videotapes he shot of them having sex would be used against them if they exposed what was happening.

Among the other more troubling tableaux: Kelly keeping a gun by his side while he berated one of his accusers as a prelude to forcing her to give him oral sex in a Los Angeles music studio; Kelly giving several accusers herpes without disclosing he had an STD; Kelly coercing a teenage boy to join him for sex with a naked girl who emerged from underneath a boxing ring in his garage; and Kelly shooting a shaming video of one alleged victim showing her smearing feces on her face as punishment for breaking his rules.

Of 14 possible racketeering acts considered in the trial, the jury found only two “not proven.” The allegations involved a woman who said Kelly took advantage of her in 2003 when she was an unsuspecting radio station intern.

She testified he whisked her to his Chicago recording studio, where she was kept locked up and was drugged before he sexually assaulted her while she was passed out. When she realized she was trapped, “I was scared. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed,” she said.

Other testimony focused on Kelly’s relationship with Aaliyah. One of the final witnesses described seeing him sexually abusing her around 1993, when Aaliyah was only 13 or 14.

Jurors also heard testimony about a fraudulent marriage scheme hatched to protect Kelly after he feared he had impregnated Aaliyah. Witnesses said they were married in matching jogging suits using a license falsely listing her age as 18; he was 27 at the time.

Aaliyah, whose full name was Aaliyah Dana Haughton, worked with Kelly, who wrote and produced her 1994 debut album, “Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number.” She died in a plane crash in 2001 at age 22.

Kelly had been tried once before, in Chicago in a child pornography case, but was acquitted in 2008.

For the Brooklyn trial, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly barred people not directly involved in the case from the courtroom in what she called a coronavirus precaution. Reporters and other spectators had to watch on a video feed from another room in the same building, though a few were allowed in the courtroom for the verdict.

___

Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed to this report.

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A 31-year-old man was shot to death Monday in Gresham on the South Side.

About 6:30 p.m., the man was in the 8800 block of South Throop Street when he was struck by gunfire, Chicago police said.

He was shot in the head and was taken Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead, police said. He hasn’t been identified.

No one is in custody.

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Former Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd) is the latest member the Chicago City Hall of Shame.

With his guilty plea Monday to wire fraud and money laundering, Munoz becomes the 36th member of the City Council to be convicted of a crime since the early 1970s.

There’s no induction ceremony — other than any related to whatever penalty will be handed down when the former City Council member is sentenced, now scheduled for Jan. 5.

But either way, Munoz is the first former or sitting Chicago alderperson to be convicted since Ald. Willie Cochran’s 2019 guilty plea added him to the crowd of those who’ve been found guilty of a crime — extortion, embezzlement, tax evasion and bribery among them.

Since then, state law has changed the name of the office from “alderman” to the more general neutral “alderperson.”

But whether they like it or not, Munoz and the rest are just as likely to be remembered as “aldercrooks.”

Former Ald. Ricardo Munoz walks out of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse at 219 S. Dearborn St after his hearing in which he plead guilty Monday.Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Munoz, incidentally, is the first current or former alderperson convicted from the Southwest Side’s 22nd Ward.

Cochran was the third from the South Side’s 20th Ward, following in the sad footsteps of his predecessors Arenda Troutman and Cliff Kelley. Even more sadly, two other wards — the Southwest Side’s 23rd and Northwest Side’s 31st — also count three former alderpersons on the list.

The ranks of the fallen also includes the father and son duo of William Carothers (28th) and Isaac “Ike” Carothers (29th), convicted nearly 30 years apart of unrelated crimes.

And there’s Ambrosio Medrano (25th), the Grover Cleveland of Chicago corruption, earning a place on the list three times for three separate corruption scandals.

The former Southwest Side alderman was first convicted in 1996 for accepting bribes. And then in 2014, two federal judges presiding over separate cases handed Medrano a total of 13 years in prison over corrupt deals involving bribes and kickbacks, although Medrano left prison last year as part of an effort to release inmates who are at-risk of contracting the coronavirus.

So, dating back to 1973, here’s Chicago’s Aldermanic Hall of Shame. Some on the list appear for crimes that occurred after their time in City Council, including James Laski, Ed Vrdolyak and William Beavers.

And the list only includes those actually convicted — not those indicted, but who have not yet gone, or never did go, to trial — in the interest of keeping it to a manageable number.

Fred Hubbard (2nd) – 1973
Pleaded guilty to embezzling.

Joseph Jambrone (28th) – 1973
Convicted of taking bribes.

Casimir J. Staszcuk (13th) – 1973
Found guilty of extortion by demanding $9,000 in exchange for allowing three zoning changes. Also convicted of mail fraud and income tax evasion.

Joseph Potempa (23rd) – 1973
Pleaded guilty to taking a $3,000 bribe to support a zoning change in his ward — and for failing to report that income to the IRS.

Frank Kuta (23rd) – 1974
Convicted of taking a $1,500 bribe from a builder to approve a zoning change and also for failing to report that income.

Thomas E. Keane (31st) – 1974
Convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy for a scheme involving the purchase and resale of tax-delinquent properties.

Ald. Thomas Keane leaves the federal courthouse in 1974 after he is sentenced to 5 years in prison.Chicago Sun Times file

Paul T. Wigoda (49th) – 1974
Convicted of tax evasion for failing to report a $50,000 bribe related to the rezoning of the Edgewater Golf Club. He also was Keane’s law partner.

Donald T. Swinarski (12th) – 1975
Pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return in connection with a $7,000 payoff for a zoning change. Later became a state senator.

Edward T. Scholl (41st) – 1975
Convicted of taking bribes.

Stanley Zydlo (26th) – 1980
Pleaded guilty to paying a bribe.

William Carothers (28th) – 1983
Convicted of attempted extortion.

Ald. William Carothers (28th), left, in 1981, and his son, Ald. Isaac “Ike” Carothers (29th), right, in 2010. Sun-Times file photos.

Louis P. Farina (36th) – 1983
Convicted of extortion.

Ald. Louis P. Farina (36th) in 1976.Ald. Louis P. Farina (36th) in 1976.

Tyrone T. Kenner (3rd) – 1983
Convicted of taking bribes.

Chester A. Kuta (31st) – 1987
As part of the Operation Phocus investigation of bribe-taking by city licensing and inspection officials, Kuta pleaded guilty to charges of filing a false income tax return and to extorting $5,370 from Leonard Kraus, a businessman who paid the bribes to maintain a flea market in Kuta’s ward.

Clifford P. Kelley (20th) – 1987
Pleaded guilty to taking bribes.

Wallace Davis Jr. (27th) – 1987
Convicted of extortion.

Perry Hutchinson (9th) – 1988
Pleaded guilty to taking bribes.

Marian Humes (8th) – 1989
Pleaded guilty to taking bribes.

Fred Roti (1st) – 1993
Convicted for bribery, extortion and racketeering.

Ambrosio Medrano (25th) — 1996, 2014
In 2014, a federal judge said Medrano pulled of an “unprecedented … corruption trifecta” that included his role in a scheme to take bribes and kickbacks to sell bandages to public hospitals, along with another conviction that year, after his 2 1/2 -year sentence in the 1990s for accepting bribes.

Ambrosio Medrano discusses his prison sentence with the Sun-Times in 2014.Jessica Koscielniak / Sun-Times file

Allan Streeter (17th) – 1996
Pleaded guilty to extortion.

Joseph Martinez (31st) – 1997
Pleaded guilty to holding a ghost-payroll job after he served as alderman.

Joseph Martinez, former alderman of the 31st Ward. Sun-Times Photo/ John White in 1981.John White/Sun-Times file

Jesse Evans (21st) – 1997
Convicted of racketeering and extortion.

Joseph Kotlarz (35th) – 1997
Convicted of theft and conspiracy for skimming $240,000 from a 1992 tollway land deal.

John Madryzk (13th) – 1998
Pleaded guilty to partaking in a ghost-payrolling scheme.

Larry Bloom (5th) – 1998
Pleaded guilty to a single felony tax charge stemming from the Operation Silver Shovel corruption probe. Admitted accepting $14,000 in bribes from an FBI mole.

Virgil Jones (15th) – 1999
Convicted of taking bribes.

Ald. Virgil Jones (15th) at the federal building in 1999.Chicago Sun Times file

Percy Giles (37th) – 1999
Found guilty of taking payoffs and tax evasion.

James Laski (23rd) – 2006
Pleaded guilty to accepting $48,000 in bribes related to the city’s Hired Truck Program. His criminal conviction stemmed from his role as city clerk.

Ed Vrdolyak (10th) – 2008 and 2019
Though he never was convicted for anything related to his role as an alderman, authorities have since convicted him twice in public corruption-related schemes.

Ald. Edward R. Vrdolyak talks on the phone on Election Night at the Bismarck Hotel’s Democratic Party Headquarters in 1982.Sun-Times archvies

Arenda Troutman (20th) – 2008
Pleaded guilty to bribery and tax charges, admitted to extorting developers seeking zoning preferences.

Isaac “Ike” Carothers (29th) – 2010
Pleaded guilty to bribery, mail fraud and tax fraud for accepting $40,000 in home improvements, meals and sports tickets from a West Side developer in exchange for zoning changes that netted the developer millions. William Carothers was his father.

William Beavers (7th) – 2013
Sentenced to six months and fined $10,000 after being found guilty of tax evasion.

Sandi Jackson (7th) – 2013
Both Sandi Jackson and her now ex-husband, former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., pleaded guilty to various schemes relating to the looting of his campaign committee. Sandi Jackson pleaded guilty to filing a false federal income tax return.

Willie Cochran (20th) – 2019
Cochran pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud for spending money from a ward fund meant for charity on personal expenses.

Ricardo Munoz (22nd) — 2021
Pleaded guilty Monday to wire fraud and money laundering, admitting he took nearly $38,000 from the Chicago Progressive Reform Caucus to pay for personal expenses such as skydiving and a relative’s college tuition.

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