Next year’s family reunion could be pretty awkward for Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and his cousin.

On Thursday, Oct. 6, a federal judge ruled that Daley is not immune to testifying in a wrongful-termination lawsuit filed against him and the city by his cousin, Mark Gyrion, who was fired for his involvement in the city’s Hired Truck program.

Gyrion, a former superintendent of garages for the Water Management Department, was terminated in February 2004 after it was discovered that he did not disclose his mother-in-law’s involvement with Hired Truck, which posed a conflict of interest, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

According to the Sun-Times, U.S. District Judge Elaine Bucklo denied Daley’s petition not to sit for a two-hour deposition, saying that the “plaintiff’s termination had been discussed with the mayor.”

Gyrion’s attorney said the firing was politically motivated, and that his client was “the ultimate scapegoat,” the Sun-Times said.

This is not Daley’s first involvement with the Hired Truck controversy. On Aug. 30, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley spoke to a standing-room-only crowd of about 300 at a city budget hearing at the South Shore Cultural Center, where he apologized for the level of corruption in the city government and vowed to eliminate it as quickly as possible, the Tribune reported.

“I know I should have done more to end the corruption more quickly,” Daley said. “I take responsibility for these problems and tonight, I make a commitment to you to do everything within my power to fix them, root out those who engage in misconduct and hold them accountable for their misdeeds.”

Daley’s public apology came just days after federal investigators interviewed him regarding his involvement with the scandal-ridden Hired Truck program. The feds spoke to Daley Aug. 26 about his connections to the program, but cautioned the public against assuming guilt.

“At this time he’s not a target,” Chicago FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Grant told the Sun-Times. “He’s a logical interview. He runs city government, he makes decisions.”

Daley quickly called a news conference following the two-hour interview, saying the questioning made him “embarrassed,” “mad” and “disappointed,” but that he would “overcome these challenges,” the Sun-Times reported.

The day before the interview, Daley’s office released employment records related to Hired Truck, but officials said they still haven’t determined the ringleader of the operation.

On Aug. 25, Ron Huberman, chief of staff for Daley, released the employment records of Angelo Torres, a former boss in the program who has already been sentenced to two years in prison, to the public. The records contain information about supervisors and pay raises during a seven-year period, the Chicago Tribune reported.

However, Huberman told the Tribune his office has been unable to determine who promoted Torres. Torres received pay raises 14 times and advanced from a car booter to one of the highest positions in the program in eight years.

“I would like nothing better today than to be able to stand up here and say this is the individual, or the two individuals, or the three individuals directly responsible for the hiring of Angelo Torres,” Huberman told the Tribune. “We are just not able to clearly get at that answer, and it would be unfair to throw out names of any sort because we can’t conclusively say that those are the people responsible.”