Feds had corrupt suburban mayor in their sights for decades before charging him, records show

In 2008, longtime Niles Mayor Nicholas Blase pleaded guilty to muscling business owners in the suburb into hiring an insurance agency in Wheeling that secretly gave him hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks.

Now, newly obtained FBI records show authorities were onto Blase, who was also a power in the Democratic Party, long before that.

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Feds had corrupt suburban mayor in their sights for decades before charging him, records show

Newly obtained records show the FBI was investigating longtime Niles Mayor Nicholas Blase in 1979 and again in 1996 before embarking on the corruption probe in the early 2000s that led to a conviction and a prison stint.

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