Father of Chicago alderman charged in phony ID ring

Earlier this year, Ricky Munoz won reelection to his seat as alderman Chicago's 22nd Ward on the city's southwest side.

But last month, federal agents raided a retail photo studio in the ward that allegedly was part of a plot to produce phony identification cards. The owner of the shop is Elias Munoz, Ricky's father.

From ABC 7 Chicago:

Federal agents allege that a ring of fake ID sellers that operated for at least 3 1/2 years in the parking lot of a Little Village strip mall routinely sent their customers -- sometimes over 100 a day -- to Nuevo Foto Munoz, 3105 W. 26th St., to fill out forms and have their pictures taken for $10 each. At another location, the counterfeiters used the snapshots to make bogus Social Security cards, green cards and driver's licenses.

I don't think I paid more than six dollars for my passport photo I got last winter at a Morton Grove Walgreens; I live in a middle class part of the Chicago area, and Munoz's ward, well, let's just say it's not in prosperous part of the metropolis. So $10 for a similar pic is a bit high. But part of the senior Munoz' defense will be that he was just taking photographs.

This is just a new twist on an old story: Not only do Chicago aldermen seem to find themselves in trouble with the law, so do their relatives--and this time it's Elias Munoz, father of Ald. Ricky (who has not been implicated).

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