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Money Coming in for Illinois Pensions

Rich Egger

Illinois' pension funds will be getting $100 million in restitution from J.P. Morgan Chase.

The bank is settling with the federal government and several states over its actions before the Great Recession of 2008.

These Wall Street banks, all of them knew that they were in fact putting literally lousy mortgages... into investments, claiming they were good...

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said J.P. Morgan duped the state's pension systems and other clients into investing in bad mortgages.

When the housing market crashed, so did the rest of the economy.

“These Wall Street banks, all of them knew that they were in fact putting literally lousy mortgages -- unsustainable mortgages with toxic features -- into investments, claiming they were good investments, when they knew, from the very beginning, that they were not going to be good investments," said Madigan 

The settlement will go to the pension systems for state employees, university workers, and public school teachers.

The money is still just a tiny fraction of the state's massive pension liability.

Illinois continues to pursue a case against credit rating agency Standard and Poors.  The state accuses the company of giving high ratings to investments that did not deserve it.

Brian Mackey covers Illinois state government and politics from the WUIS Statehouse bureau. He was previously A&E editor at The State Journal-Register and Statehouse bureau chief for the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin. He can be reached at (217) 206-6020.