* 11:19 am - As I’ve said before, Stu Levine is an unabashedly horrible “star” witness. From the Sun-Times’ Tony Rezko trial blog…

This morning, star prosecution witness Stuart Levine says pleading guilty was one of the most significant days of his life. […]

Levine said he couldn’t tell jurors on what day he pleaded guilty.

“Can you tell them what month, sir?” Duffy asks.

No, Levine says.

“Could you give me the year?”

“No, sir,” Levine answered.

Duffy tossed out a mocking question: “Did you plead guilty?”

“Yes sir,” Levine quickly answered.

*** UPDATE *** 12:45 (Kevin): Levine amazed by “snorting sounds”:

Tony Rezko lawyer Duffy asked Levine whether Levine’s secretary heard him snorting Crystal Meth in his office.

“If my snorting was so loud that you could hear me through a wall or door, then I’m quite amazed by the loudness of my snorting,” Levine said, not flinching.

And then this:

Levine: “In order for us to communicate, Mr. Duffy, I would respectfully ask you to explain what you mean by ‘out of it’?”
Duffy: “Did you get hhhhigh at these parties,” Duffy asked with a sarcastic inflection in the word high. “And when I say high, you know what I mean?”
Levine: “Yes sir.:”

* Levine then described drug binges and how he formed two lines of drugs — one line of powder form of Special K and another narrow line of Crystal Meth. He’d then mix the two powders together and snort the combination through a short straw. He’d do 10 to 20 hits a night.

But Levine did draw the line:

He’d never drink alcohol with Special K. And he never would smoke or inject the drugs, he said.

I’m glad to see that he was being prudent. Could the defense ask for a better witness?

*** UPDATE *** 4:30 (Kevin): Levine enraged at drug use allegations:

Levine estimates he spent $2,000 a month and $20,000 a YEAR on drugs. He came up with that calculation, he said, just weeks before taking the witness stand. He read in the newspaper earlier this year that he was spending $25,000 a MONTH on Crystal Meth.
Levine specifically said remembers “distinctly being enraged at reading the Chicago Tribune,” over that report.

“I made that calculation,” Levine said. He said of that estimate: “so outrageous was that figure that I took a moment to reflect and figure out approximately how much I was spending on drugs.”
The Sun-Times reported that same estimation about drug use — it came from a defense filing.

Levine is delivering his stalwart testimony. However, today’s $2,000-a-month drug estimate doesn’t seem to square with what Levine testified to earlier: that he spent $1 million on drug use between 2001 and 2004.

Levine tells Duffy he withdrew more than $1 million in cash in a five-year period but he maintains he only spent $2,000 or so on drugs each month. The rest of the cash was spent in a variety of different ways.

Here are some of them:

–$50,000 in December on Christmas gifts.
Levine paid his friend Dr. Weinstein’s secretary $2,500 at Christmas.
“Who got the remaining $47,500?” Duffy asked of the cash spent in December of 2001.

Levine: “Doormen, waiters, secretaries who worked for other people…any number of people who served me in some capacty or another, all around town I made gifts to them,” Levine said. “I spent at Christmas time, approximately $50,000 a year, yes sir,” Levine said.
– He also gave his drug buddies “perhaps $100,000 a year”, in cash, to help them out when they needed it, including to help them pay tuition and other school costs.
–Levine also said he allegedly paid a $20,000 cash bribe to former Ald. Eddie Vrdolyak. They did not go into specifics over what the alleged bribe was for.

* Either way, there seems to be a contradiction in his testimony.