Sordid ties to felons tarnish Chicago city police.

Byline: David Jackson

CHICAGO _ Red, white and green lights twinkled overhead as Chicago's police chief stepped onto the Brooklyn street.

Supt. Matt Rodriguez beheld the last strains of the festival of San Cono, a daylong pageant of processions, prayers and food that honored a humble Italian saint.

At Rodriguez's side was his worldly guide, the pal he treasured enough to call "a brother," convicted felon Frank Milito.

A North Side businessman whose maladroit English hardly masked his flinty intelligence, Milito had invested with a Chicago mob boss and come under scrutiny during a high-profile homicide investigation. Yet he also held court at his Wells Street restaurant, filling the plates and glasses of his many friends in law enforcement.

Rodriguez would be forced to resign within weeks of that 1997 New York vacation when he acknowledged a friendship with Milito in a Tribune interview. But Milito's financial and personal ties to Rodriguez were far more extensive than previously known, and Milito's access reached beyond the superintendent to other ranking members of the Police Department.

Since the days of Prohibition, when crooked cops and gangsters bloodied Chicago's neighborhoods and corrupted its courts, police Rule 47 has prohibited officers from fraternizing with criminals. The vast majority of Chicago police officers do their work and risk their lives with unheralded integrity. But Rule 47 has been openly defied and rarely, if ever, enforced.