Fed Informant Who Snared Former Streit Associate Found Dead In Suicide

A prominent Bridgeport businessman whose undercover cooperation with the FBI lead to corruption convictions of a former Chicago alderman and Cook County commissioner was found dead on Tuesday of a single gunshot wound, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Michael DiFoggio agreed to cooperate with federal authorities in 2010, after he was caught hiding income from his plumbing and contracting businesses from the IRS, and using $300,000 for personal use, court records said.

A family member found the 58-year-old DiFoggio’s body at his plumbing business Tuesday night, with a single gunshot wound to the mouth and a .357 caliber handgun lying nearby, the Tribune reported.

The Cook County Medical Examiner ruled DiFoggio’s death a suicide.

DiFoggio was wearing a wire when he caught former county commissioner Joseph Mario Moreno saying: "I don't want to be a hog; I just want to be a pig. Hogs get slaughtered, pigs get fat.”

Moreno pleaded guilty to an extortion charge in federal court in July, and signed a plea deal admitting that he had accepted a $5,000 cash from DiFoggio to back a waste transfer station and other corruption schemes while sitting on the town’s economic board.

He served on the Cook County Board representing Cicero from 1994 to 2010, after he lost his bid for reelection.

The former county commissioner, who also goes by his middle name Mario, is a former managing partner of Illinois Energy Aggregation LLC, a company started by Oak Lawn Tr. Bob Streit (Dist. 3) and attorney friend, Dennis Brennan.

Moreno was involved in the company until June 2012, when he resigned from Illinois Energy Aggregation after being indicted by the feds.

None of the crimes Moreno was convicted of involved Illinois Energy Aggregation.

Read the Chicago Tribune story of Michael DiFoggio’s death.