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La-Van Hawkins, who built a fortune with Burger King, Pizza Hut and Checkers Drive-In franchises across the country, has another legal battle brewing.
Hawkins grew up in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing project where he was an admitted gang member and cocaine addict. He began working at a McDonalds cleaning toilets and eventually became general manager of a McDonalds in downtown Chicago. Hawkins continued to rise through the ranks until he was able to parlay his experience in the franchise industry to buy a Checkers franchise. Five years after Hawkins bought that franchise, he was managing the most successful African American franchise restaurant company in the United States.
A millionaire by all accounts, Hawkins quickly made friends in the political arena. Those friends were part of a corruption scheme in my adopted hometown of Philadelphia – as part of the scheme, Hawkins was thought to have bribed then Philadelphia Treasurer Corey Kemp in exchange for favors. Hawkins was eventually convicted and sentenced to federal prison on perjury and fraud charges.
The federal investigation into the pay-to-play scheme was made public when local police discovered that the FBI had bugged the office of then Philadelphia Mayor John Street during his re-election campaign. Street, who has surprisingly never been charged with misconduct, won the election handily.
Hawkins was scheduled to be released from federal prison in 2009. But his freedom may only be temporary. Earlier this week, he was indicted by a federal grand jury in Detroit on charges that he collected $5.3 million in payroll taxes from employees but never delivered those taxes to the federal government.
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