Want to read more?
Our stories are always free! We just need your email address.
Success! Your account was created and you’re signed in.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
When republishing or co-publishing our stories, please copy and paste our tracking code (found at the bottom of the copy below - it includes the words "republication-tracker-tool") anywhere in the body of this article in your website’s content management system. This will let us know how much traffic our story has received. Find our content republishing guidelines here.
by Sandy Bergo and Chuck Neubauer, Illinois Answers Project
February 8, 2018
Our stories are always free! We just need your email address.
Success! Your account was created and you’re signed in.
A Chicago native, Sandy Bergo began her professional career as a reporter for the Chicago Reporter, worked as a writer and producer for WBBM Radio, and for 20 years, was a producer with Pam Zekman’s investigative team at WBBM-TV.
She has shared in local and national awards for her work. Her stories have exposed bad doctors, campaign finance irregularities and government waste of taxpayers’ money.
In 2001, Sandy moved with her husband, Chuck Neubauer, to Washington D.C., where she worked as a freelance reporter, television producer and a staff writer for the Center for Public Integrity.
For 10 years until 2019, she was the executive director of The Fund for Investigative Journalism.
During that time, she collaborated with her husband on investigative stories for the Better Government Association.
Sandy and Chuck have one son and two grandsons.
More by Sandy BergoChuck Neubauer is an award-winning investigative reporter who has a five-decade track record of breaking high-impact stories about public officials, from Chicago City Council members to powerful members of Congress.
He is currently based in Washington, D.C. after years of working in Chicago as an investigative reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times and earlier for the Chicago Tribune where he shared in a Pulitzer Prize with the late George Bliss for a series on abuses in federal housing programs.
He and his wife, Sandy Bergo, have spent the last 10 years doing freelance investigative stories as special contributors for the Illinois Answers Project and the Better Government Association. Their reporting has looked into the actions of politicians ranging from Ald. Edward M. Burke to former House Speaker Michael J. Madigan to former Rep. Bobby Rush to Gov. J.B. Pritzker. They have also reported on how leaders of the Illinois legislature skirted campaign finance limits and also on the generous pensions some Illinois lawmakers receive.
At the Sun-Times, Neubauer, along with Mark Brown and Michael Briggs, reported in the 1990s that powerful House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dan Rostenkowski misused hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal taxpayer funds to purchase three personal cars, buy expensive gifts for friends and hire staffers who did personal work for him. Those disclosures were the basis for several counts in the federal indictment against Rostenkowski who pleaded guilty and served 17 months in prison.
Neubauer’s reporting also helped lead to federal criminal charges and convictions of former Illinois Governor Dan Walker, Illinois Attorney General William J. Scott and former Illinois State Treasurer Jerry Cosentino.
In 2001, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked for the Los Angeles Times and later the Washington Times, exposing conflicts of interests involving Senate and House leaders.
Neubauer began his career as the BGA’s first intern in 1971 before becoming a reporter.
More by Chuck NeubauerWe'll send a verification code to %EMAIL%.