AUCTION OF PROPERTIES ONCE UNDER REV. LEON FINNEY’S CONTROL FETCHES $7.7 MILLION
The Rev. Leon Finney Jr. sat stoically in a packed downtown conference room Monday as most of the South Side real estate empire formerly under his control was sold.
Finney and around 60 others converged at the law offices of Levenfeld Pearlstein in the Loop to bid on 15 properties being auctioned off by the Woodlawn Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit property management company started by Finney nearly 50 years ago.
Last October, Woodlawn filed for bankruptcy after the IRS slapped a lien on its bank accounts for owing millions in back payroll taxes. Finney stepped down as the head of the nonprofit in November.
In March, a bankruptcy judge appointed U.S. trustee Gina Krol to take over Woodlawn after accusing Finney and his associates of engaging in fraud, self-dealing and mismanagement while leading the nonprofit.
Krol’s task is to squeeze as much cash out of Woodlawn as she can to pay off the nonprofit’s long list of spurned creditors.
All together, Woodlawn received $7.7 million from Monday’s auction.
Though Finney never raised a paddle or yelled out a bid, he sat next to a woman who attempted to purchase the former headquarters of his beleaguered media venture, Urban Broadcast Media. Her highest offer ultimately came up short of the $475,000 winning bid.
In August, Woodlawn evicted Urban Broadcast Media from the residential building at 4108 S. King Drive. Finney later moved the media company into his landmark Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church, which is located just steps away.
Following the auction, Finney declined to answer questions from the Sun-Times — as he has for months.
Finney has previously pointed to his recent poor health when asked about Woodlawn’s financial issues.
Jerry Thomas, Finney’s spokesman, later claimed the woman’s efforts were unrelated to his client.
Fourteen other properties were included in the sale, all of which surpassed their minimum bids. The largest bid was for a vacant lot near the Cermak-Chinatown Red Line stop, which sold for $1.8 million. (An adjacent vacant lot sold for another $600,000.)
Financing for one of the bids fell through, and a property was offered to another bidder after the sale, but auctioneer Dan Hyman declined to provide information about the transaction.
As the big money was being thrown around, the auction was briefly interrupted by a group of protesters pushing for a community benefits agreement for the area surrounding the planned Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park.
“We need to keep Woodlawn affordable for the many and not the few,” one of the four activists said before being escorted out of the building by a security guard.
The Chicago Sun-Times could not immediately verify the identities of all of Monday’s buyers.
Carlos Ballesteros is a corps member of Report for America, a not-forprofit journalism program that aims to bolster Sun-Times coverage of Chicago’s South Side and West Side.