Renato Mariotti

Renato Mariotti is an American attorney, legal commentator, acting fill-in anchor for WGN-TV and former federal prosecutor. On October 26, 2017, he announced his candidacy for Illinois Attorney General, but he lost in the Democratic primary election.[1]

Renato Mariotti
Born
Chicago, Illinois
Alma materUniversity of Chicago (B.S.)
Yale Law School (J.D.)
OccupationAttorney, pundit

Early life

Mariotti was born in Chicago to working-class parents and graduated from Naperville Central High School in 1994.[2][3] He earned a B.S. in political science from the University of Chicago in 1998 and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School in 2001.[2][4]

Career

After law school he clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals and practiced antitrust and securities litigation at Heller, Ehrman, White & Mcauliffe LLP from 2002 to 2007.[5][6]

From 2007 to 2016 he worked for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois, where he prosecuted white-collar crimes including commodities and securities fraud, health care fraud, mortgage fraud, and tax evasion.

Mariotti prosecuted the infamous Bogdanov crime family,[7] which was turned into an episode of CNBC's American Greed.[8] Mariotti also convicted the "Second Hand Bandit," Jose Banks,[9] who later escaped from prison and threatened to kill him. That case was also made into an American Greed episode.[10] Mariotti was also responsible for indicting and convicting real estate mogul Laurance Freed for defrauding the City of Chicago, banks, and his business partner.[11]

In 2015 Mariotti was the lead prosecutor in a financial spoofing case against financier Michael Coscia, United States v. Coscia, a groundbreaking commodities fraud case.[12] This was the first criminal conviction of a high frequency trader.[13][14] Mariotti explained financial "spoofing" to the jurors as a type of scam in which stock traders create computer programs to create fake buy and sell orders that flood the markets and move price in a direction that profits the scammer.[15][16]

In 2016 he joined Thompson Coburn LLP, where he handles government-related financial cases.[5][17][18]

Before announcing his candidacy for Illinois Attorney General, Mariotti was widely known as a commentator on legal issues pertaining to current events, with a large following on Twitter and regular appearances on MSNBC.[19][20][21] His quotes and writings have appeared in the New York Times, Time, the Washington Post, Newsweek, and Politico, and he has made many television appearances on MSNBC, CNN, and CBS News.[5][21]

Candidacy for Illinois Attorney General

Mariotti ran as a Democrat to succeed Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, who is retiring in 2018. In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times he said his priority as attorney general would be economic justice: "People like my parents who are working hard and struggling to make ends meet, things haven't gotten better [for] them. Since the '80s or '90s, they have continued to struggle, [while] people at the top who are taking advantage of them are getting richer." He also pledged to focus on the problem of wage theft, estimating that over 50 million dollars in wages had been illegally withheld from workers in Illinois.[4] Mariotti lost to State Senator Kwame Raoul in the March 20, 2018, primary election.[22]

Electoral history
2018 Illinois Attorney General Democratic primary results[23]
Party Candidate Votes %
Democratic Kwame Raoul 390,472 30.17
Democratic Pat Quinn 352,425 27.23
Democratic Sharon Fairley 164,304 12.70
Democratic Nancy Rotering 123,446 9.54
Democratic Scott Drury 102,193 7.90
Democratic Jesse Ruiz 70,158 5.42
Democratic Renato Mariotti 51,902 4.01
Democratic Aaron Goldstein 39,196 3.03
Total votes 1,294,096 100

See also

References
  1. "Lawyer Launches Illinois Attorney General Bid on Television". NBC Chicago. October 28, 2017.
  2. "Renato Mariotti". Ballotpedia. Retrieved February 16, 2018.
  3. "Meet Renato". Renato Mariotti. Retrieved February 16, 2018.
  4. "Democratic candidate for attorney general: Renato Mariotti". Chicago Sun Times. February 11, 2018.
  5. "Renato Mariotti". Thompson Coburn LLP. Retrieved February 16, 2018.
  6. "Renato Mariotti". Bloomberg. Retrieved February 16, 2018.
  7. "Judge Lets Accused Million-Dollar Toy Thief Await Trial At Northbrook Home". CBS Chicago. June 26, 2015.
  8. "Hear how Lela Bogdanov hid huge stolen items inside her skirt". CNBC. June 26, 2017.
  9. "'Second Hand Bandit' convicted of bank robberies". Chicago Tribune. December 13, 2012.
  10. "American Greed: 'Diagnosis: Blood Money - Chicago Jailbreak'". CNBC. September 13, 2016.
  11. "Developer who lost Block 37 found guilty of fraud, faces 230 years in prison". Chicago Tribune. February 25, 2016.
  12. "Seventh Circuit Upholds First-Ever Federal Spoofing Conviction". Cleary Gottlieb. August 10, 2017.
  13. "CME trader found guilty in landmark 'spoofing' case". Chicago Tribune. November 3, 2015.
  14. Trotter, Greg (14 July 2016). "Trader gets 3 years in federal fraud case: Michael Coscia 1st sentenced under 'anti-spoofing' law". Chicago Tribune. ProQuest 1803692533.
  15. Janssen, Kim (27 October 2015). "Accused CME spoofer 'living the American Dream,' defense says". Chicago Tribune. ProQuest 1727361689.
  16. Janssen, Kim (1 November 2015). "'I'm not dealing hot dogs, I'm dealing futures!': 'Spoofing' trial gets testy as defendant faces questioning". ChicagoTribune. ProQuest 1728512662.
  17. "Prosecutor who led feds' 'spoofing' case lands at Thompson Coburn". Chicago Sun Times. May 7, 2016.
  18. "Thompson Coburn Snags Atty From Landmark Spoofing Case". Law 360. June 28, 2016.
  19. "Morning Spin: Former federal prosecutor, MSNBC regular joins race to succeed Lisa Madigan". Tribune. 27 October 2017. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  20. Janssen, Kim (28 September 2017). "Twitter star and former fed Renato Mariotti mulling AG run". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
  21. "Anti-Trump pundit runs for Illinois attorney general". Politico. October 27, 2017.
  22. "Raoul Claims Victory in Democratic Race for Illinois Attorney General". NBC Chicago, Ward Room (blog). March 20, 2018. Retrieved April 9, 2018.
  23. "Election Results". Illinois Board of Elections. Retrieved 18 February 2020.
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