* Another week, another set of crushing indictments. Will it ever end? I sure wish there was an easy answer here, but I’m getting so tired of this merry go-round that I’ve spent the better part of today seriously rethinking some of my own preconceptions and attempting to sort things through. Your comments definitely helped today, so thanks much for that. I’ll have more next week because I want this blog to help Illinois come up with some real solutions that will make real changes.
Also, I’d like to send a message to the small handful of reformers out there who are claiming that I am somehow part of the problem: Where were you last year when I and others were screaming almost every day for a constitutional convention in the hope that radical changes could be made to our political system? Do I have to make a list of all the reform ideas I’ve backed over the years? Refusing to automatically praise your every word, questioning some of your reform proposals and pointing out the reasons behind the Statehouse hostility to y’all does not make me or anyone else evil. You’re almost Rodlike with your simplistic black and white world and your overreactions. Bite me.
* The video quality is poor, but the song rocks and it’s appropriate on so many different levels this crazy week…
* This question may seem odd since he was just indicted yesterday and he’s pretty much universally reviled, but what is your fondest memory of Rod Blagojevich?
Try your very best to avoid snark and save your hate for other posts. Thanks.
On Oct. 8, 2008, defendant Blagojevich advised Lobbyist A that he intended to take official action that would provide additional state money to Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, and that Blagojevich wanted to get $50,000 in campaign contributions from the hospital’s chief executive officer.
On Oct. 17, 2008, Blagojevich called the hospital’s CEO to tell him of his intent to increase the Illinois Medicaid reimbursement rate for speciality-care pediatric physicians. Shortly before this, Blagojevich had directed Deputy Governor A to initiate such an increase, which Illinois providers of pediatric healthcare, including Children’s Memorial Hospital, had actively supported for years.
On Oct. 22, 2008, Blagojevich spoke with the Children’s CEO and asked him to arrange to raise $25,000 for Blagojevich prior to Jan. 1, 2009. On Nov. 12, 2008, after the Children’s CEO had not returned additional phone calls from Robert Blagojevich and no political contributions from the Children’s CEO or other persons associated with the hospital had been received, Blagojevich spoke to Deputy Governor A about the increase in the Medicaid reimbursement rates for specialty-care pediatric physicians, asking whether “we could pull it back if we needed to. . . .”
I told subscribers about what happened next, but the feds didn’t reveal it until yesterday…
As a result of this conversation, Deputy Governor A instructed the Department of Healthcare Services to stop its work on increasing the reimbursement for specialty-care pediatric physicians.
So, you’ve got the alleged order and the alleged execution of that order. Bingo.
The lawyer for Springfield businessman William F. Cellini said Thursday that Cellini will try to have his case tried separately from that of former governor Rod Blagojevich.
Cellini, Blagojevich and four Blagojevich associates were all included in a single indictment filed in Chicago federal court Thursday.
Cellini was accused five months ago of essentially the same package of charges, but the fact that he was linked via Thursday’s indictment to the alleged misdeeds of the former governor could complicate Cellini’s defense, a University of Illinois law professor said Thursday.”
Cellini’s alleged misdeeds…
In both indictments, the basic allegations involving Cellini center on Capri Capital, a real estate investment firm that wanted to manage $220 million in Teachers’ Retirement System funds. Cellini allegedly participated in a scheme to deny Capri the TRS business unless one of Capri’s co-owners, Thomas Rosenberg, came up with “significant political contributions for Blagojevich.”
Plus this one…
Cellini and Kelly also are accused of proposing to transfer Jon Bauman, the executive director of TRS, to a job with a different state agency to ensure that he would not cooperate with law enforcement.
* Rep. Bill Black (R-Danville) was the lone House voted against a pension “reform” bill this week. The bill essentially fired all state pension system board members, plus Jon Bauman, the executive director of the Teachers Retirement System mentioned above…
Rep. Bill Black, R-Danville, said that is unfair to Bauman, who has not been accused of wrongdoing.
“By our action today, his career is effectively over. His reputation is effectively ruined,” Black said.
“Mr. Bauman was on deck before, during and after the scandal perpetrated by Stuart Levine at TRS, and he only became a whistleblower when the FBI appeared at his office,” [Speaker Madigan] said. Levine, who pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges, was accused of illegally manipulating who got in pension investments.
Bauman, contacted after the vote, said no one from the Quinn administration has met anyone from the teacher pension system or is in position to evaluate the fund’s positive actions. Bauman, who held office before Blagojevich took office, declined further comment.
* I don’t think for a minute that Blagojevich will plead guilty, but the second part of this quote ought to chill him to the bone…
“I think a plea agreement is probably going to be the outcome of this,” Hall said. “But who knows, Blagojevich could push it to a trial. But if he goes to trial and loses on even one of the counts, his sentencing likely is going to be on the higher end.”
* I don’t really understand this passage from the Chicago Tribune editorial…
But it was only a matter of time before something like this happened: Prior scandals haven’t goaded Illinois pols to pass laws that would seriously curb their own broad influence.
What state ethics laws, exactly, would’ve prevented Rod Blagojevich’s crime spree? The man is apparently a criminal through and through.
* The Sun-Times thinks that our lax laws made his life easier…
The governor is charged with shaking down people for political contributions in return for government contracts or jobs.
He did this so easily — if the charges are true — because our campaign finance system is broken.
We have no limits on how much anyone can contribute to a politician.
It says a lot about Blagojevich that a document as breathtaking as the 75-page indictment probably will elicit little more in Illinois than knowing shrugs.
It contained few surprises. Most of it we had heard before either in the trials of Antoin “Tony” Rezko and Stuart Levine, or in the criminal complaint filed when Blagojevich was arrested at his home early Dec. 9.
I hate to burst their little bubble, but the allegations that Blagojevich set out to use the governor’s office as his own personal piggy bank was “new.” And it had nothing to do with campaign contributions.
Among the most startling information in the indictment is the claim that Blagojevich and others specifically set out to illegally profit through his new administration as early as 2002 — the year he was first elected — with detailed plans to divide the money after he left office.
“In a series of conversations that began in 2002 and continued after defendant Rod Blagojevich was elected governor in November 2002, defendants Blagojevich (and others) … agreed that they would use (his) position as governor … for financial gain, which would be divided among them, with the understanding that the money would be distributed after Rod Blagojevich left public office,” the indictment alleges.
So, Rezko was supposed to bank his ill-gotten gains and then share it with the guv. If true, that’s an amazing story.
* The indictment continues…
In 2003, Blagojevich, Monk, Kelly, Rezko and other co-schemers implemented this agreement by directing lucrative state business relating to the refinancing of billions of dollars in State of Illinois Pension Obligation Bonds to a company whose lobbyist agreed to provide hundreds of thousands of dollars to Rezko out of the fee the lobbyist would collect, and Rezko in turn agreed to split the money with Blagojevich, Monk and Kelly
The greed was apparently rampant.
And what’s that about giving the money to Rezko? It wasn’t a loan? From the archives…
…prosecutors allege that Kjellander served as a straw man for Rezko in the bond deal. Rezko, the ruling suggested, directed the investment bank Bear Stearns to give the fee to Kjellander, who then transferred $600,000 of the $809,000 fee to Joseph Aramanda, a Rezko business associate. Aramanda then allegedly turned over $450,000 to four other people designated by Rezko.
In an interview… Kjellander said he made a “loan” to Aramanda “because I got a very favorable interest rate. That loan was repaid before the due date, and I made a very nice profit on the interest.”
“I did nothing improper,” he said. But Kjellander also emphasized he had “no knowledge of what” Aramanda did with the money.
The former North Side congressman, picked by Obama in November as his top staff member, was allegedly the subject of extortion in 2006 after he inquired about a $2 million state grant to benefit a school in his district. Prosecutors say Blagojevich instructed a top aide to block the release of the money, even though it had been included in the state’s budget.
Blagojevich also allegedly told a high-ranking state official that Emanuel’s brother needed to host a fundraiser for him. The indictment does not say which of two brothers was mentioned, but the White House aide said it was Ari Emanuel, a high-powered Hollywood agent active in political fundraising.
Prosecutors said a fundraiser was never held. The aide would not say whether Emanuel ever actually learned of the request.
The aide said the school is the Chicago Academy and Chicago Academy High School on the Northwest Side. In 2005, Emanuel announced he had secured $2 million in funding by working with Blagojevich and it would be used for school grounds and a sports field.
In 2005, then-Congressman Emanuel joined with Chicago and state education officials in announcing a $2 million grant for The Chicago Academy and Chicago Academy High School in the city’s Portage Park neighborhood. Emanuel said at the time that he worked closely with the governor to secure the $2 million.
A local school official confirmed Thursday that there had been delays getting the money but knew nothing of the possible politics at play.
* Is Patti Blagojevich next? The Sun-Times has the story…
The state’s former first lady has not been charged with any crimes.
“This is certainly a good sign for her, and I’m sure this is of some relief to the family,” said Mrs. Blagojevich’s lawyer, Raymond Pijon.
Pijon, however, did not rule out possible future charges against his client, a mother of two. “It would not be realistic of me to dismiss that possibility,” he said.
Truer words were never said.
Background…
Rezko directed a $14,396 commission to Mrs. Blagojevich “even though she had done no work to earn that commission,” the indictment states. Rezko also hired Mrs. Blagojevich as “an employee of Rezko’s real estate business at a salary of approximately $12,000 per month” between October 2003 and May 2004 “and supplemented her salary by directing another real estate commission to her in the amount of approximately $40,000, even though she had done little or no work to earn that commission.”
It is my understanding these new revelations are coming from Rezko,” Pijon said. “It is important to understand that it is possible for individuals to be used as a conduit in a scheme without being involved in it.”
Asked about allegations his client took money she did not earn, Pijon said it is common in real estate transactions for brokers to collect fees for little work. “Sometimes you don’t do very much and you get a commission,” he said.
* The totals…
All told, the Tribune uncovered political connections in more than $500,000 in real estate commissions to River Realty since Blagojevich began running for governor in 2000. They include a $32,500 commission from a roads contractor who won three no-bid state contracts worth $10 million; $9,438 from her husband’s then chief of staff, Alonzo “Lon” Monk, who also was indicted Thursday; and $113,875 from a Chicago banker and his wife, who operated a drug testing firm with a long-standing state contract.
* From the indictment…
After Blagojevich’s wife’s real estate business became the subject of critical media coverage, Blagojevich directed Harris to try to find a paid state board appointment or position for her. During several conversations in early 2008, Blagojevich informed Harris that he wanted his wife put on the Pollution Control Board, which pays salaries to its board members. When Harris told Blagojevich that his wife was not qualified for the position, Blagojevich told him to find other employment for his wife.
In the spring of 2008, around the time that Blagojevich’s wife passed a licensing exam that allowed her to sell financial securities, Blagojevich asked Harris and others to set up informational or networking meetings for his wife with financial institutions that had business with the state in hopes that those businesses would assist in getting his wife a job. Harris later arranged meetings between Blagojevich’s wife and officials at two financial institutions that had business with the state. When Blagojevich concluded that officials at these institutions were unhelpful in finding his wife a job, he told Harris that he did not want the institutions receiving further business from the state.
So when the former police chief was accused last year of operating a bogus prostitution sting and pocketing some $400,000, the locals started talking. And when the chief’s brother was later appointed to take over for him, the chatter picked up.
Of the cases filed, prosecutors dismissed DUI charges against two plaintiffs, and a jury found another not guilty of DUI. In another case, a judge ruled the officer had no grounds to arrest the plaintiff for DUI, Erickson said.
* Illinois wind turbines: Florida company wants to build 133 in DeKalb County, 18 in Lee County
Boeing Co. said Thursday it received orders for just six passenger and freight jets in March, down sharply from the same month a year earlier, as the global economic slowdown keeps battering aircraft demand.
During the same month last year, Boeing booked orders for 99 jetliners, according to figures posted on the company’s Web site.
Last September, Ryan said he reached out to Blagojevich after former Mayor Nicholas Blase stepped down in the face of a federal corruption indictment he later pled guilty to. Ryan said he decided not to seek Blase’s endorsement after his guilty plea. Ryan explained that he worked for Blagojevich’s campaign in both his first and second runs for governor performing work as a private investigator and as a general campaign volunteer. He also contributed to Blagojevich’s campaign fund.
“The crimes he did don’t look good for him now. Any politician should be serving the people not themselves.” said Ryan about Blagojevich. “Fifty-two percent of Illinois was duped by him, he duped me twice.”
Ryan denied he participated in pay to play politics. “I applied for a job with the state fire marshal for 10 years. If I had done it I would have gotten the job,” said Ryan.
The Cook County Board on Thursday approved borrowing more than $251 million for construction, building improvements and computer equipment, after slashing Board President Todd Stroger’s original borrowing proposal.
Commissioners eliminated or delayed dozens of projects that would have required borrowing another $73 million. Earlier this year, they also rejected Stroger’s proposal to borrow another $364 million to cover yearly operating costs.
By the time the paring was complete, Commissioner Forrest Claypool (D-Chicago), a Stroger critic, said money was being borrowed only for projects that “are necessary and important for the functioning of our county.”
But that hasn’t stopped vandals from venting their frustrations on the beleaguered machines. Last month, a man was taken into police custody after he repeatedly pounded a meter with a concrete bock. Other meters have been wrapped with tape, doused with paint, jammed with pennies, sabotaged with super glue, filled with expanding foam and, in one case, set on fire.
The city doesn’t track the issue. But LAZ Parking—the subcontractor that took over meter maintenance in February—says incidents are up. Company officials declined to elaborate because, as LAZ Chief Operating Officer Mike Kuziak put it, they don’t want to give people “any ideas.”
“Call it civil disobedience,” said Mike, a local blogger who runs theexpiredmeter.com and asked that his last name be withheld because his site explains how to beat tickets. “It seems to be a concerted effort to strike back in a really wired way. It’s crazy.”
