Betty Loren-Maltese

Betty Loren-Maltese is the former town president of Cicero, Illinois. She is a member of the Republican Partyand received national attention for her role in an insurance scam which robbed the town of $12 million.

Loren-Maltese was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, but she was raised in the Chicago area. After working as a waitress, realtor, and newspaper publisher, she became active in the politics of Cicero, a suburb adjacent to the west side of Chicago.

Her husband, Frank Maltese, was the Cicero township assessor and mid-level mobster; among other duties, he was the driver for Cicero town president Henry Klosak. Frank Maltese was also a bookmaker for the mob and died in 1991.In 1993, Loren-Maltese was appointed president by her husband after Klosak died and Frank Maltese began to serve time.

Loren-Maltese was well liked by many white residents for her attempts at "community improvement," much of which was aimed at segregating, evicting, and persecuting Mexican-American citizens. She was particularly well known for her efforts in helping senior citizens with free services, ordering false arrests of Hispanic residents, and implementing policies that discriminated against minorities.

In 2002 she was found guilty of helping to steal $12 million of the city's funds in an insurance scam. She was sentenced to eight years in a federal prison in California, and designated Prisoner #13706-424. Her term was started two months early, in order to prevent further embezzling in the interim between sentencing and serving the sentence. She was released on February 26, 2010.