Ald. Gardiner's former top aide pleads guilty after trying to sell antique machine gun to undercover agent
A former city worker and aide to Ald. Jim Gardiner pleaded guilty Thursday to a single felony gun charge after attempting to sell a World War II-era machine gun to an undercover federal agent in 2020.
Charles Sikanich, 41, was working as both Gardiner's 45th Ward superintendent and as an employee of the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation when he made plans to sell the MP-40 fully automatic machine gun while he was on the clock.
Sikanich has long maintained the gun was brought home by his grandfather as a war trophy and wasn't operational, as far as the family knew. But after delays in the case, Sikanich pleaded guilty to a count of unlawful use of a weapon in a last minute deal with the Illinois Attorney General’s Office that allowed him to avoid a bench trial that was set to begin Thursday before Judge Kenneth Wadas.
Under the terms of the deal, the conviction will be wiped from Sikanich's record if he successfully completes a diversion program for first-time gun offenders.
Sikanich rejected the deal when it was first offered in September, an assistant attorney general said in court Thursday as the trial was set to begin. Prosecutors offered to reduce the charge — from a Class 2 felony to a Class 4 felony — and agreed to a sentence of 18 months of probation in the diversion program and community service.
If convicted of the original Class 2 count, Sikanich would have faced a minimum sentence of three years in prison, prosecutors said.
Sikanich and his attorney, Jim McKay, said they were ready for trial but decided to reconsider after prosecutors indicated the deal was still on the table and Wadas told them he would let Sikanich choose where to perform his community service.
The judge said the court system has struggled to find places that will agree to work with defendants sentenced to community service.
After a break to discuss the offer with his attorney, Sikanich entered the guilty plea and prosecutors agreed to further reduce the probation period to 12 months.
Wadas sentenced Sikanich to 50 hours of community service, which Sikanich said he would complete with St. Tarcissus Catholic Church in Jefferson Park.
Under the state’s first-time gun offender program, Sikanich’s conviction will be cleared if he successfully completes the program and doesn’t commit any new offenses.
Federal authorities raided Sikanich’s home in 2021 and seized multiple weapons, including the machine gun — but he wasn’t formally charged until the following year. In arguments made in court, McKay likened the machine gun to “a paper weight” because it had long been rendered inert.
McKay said it had been owned by Sikanich’s “hero” grandfather, who served in the Second World War, and described the gun as a “war trophy” and “wall-hanger” that General Douglas MacArthur allowed veterans to bring home.
It was registered with the Internal Revenue Service in the 1960s because the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives didn’t exist yet, McKay said, noting that Sikanich’s mother had attempted to register it again in 2015.
Prosecutors countered that the gun could have easily been made active again — a matter that was expected to be a central argument at trial, with both the defense and prosecutors planning to call expert witnesses to testify about the gun's functionality.
After the hearing, McKay said he was confident his client would have prevailed in court. But he acknowledged that he advised Sikanich to take the deal to avoid any chance he would land in prison.
Sikanich declined to comment, except to say that he believed his prosecution was politically motivated.
When the charges were filed, Attorney General Kwame Raoul said that trying to "illegally sell a dangerous firearm like a machine gun demonstrates at best indifference toward the public’s safety. However, to do so on government time using government property demonstrates a shocking disregard for the people government employees have committed to serve."
On Thursday, a spokesperson for Raoul did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the decision to offer the deal.