A Chicago homeless agency has fired Illinois First Lady Patricia Blagojevich from her job as its chief fundraiser.
The board of the Chicago Christian Industrial League on Tuesday exercised the termination clause of Blagojevich’s contract, according to interim executive director Mary Shaver. She said she could not discuss why the board terminated Blagojevich because it is a personnel issue.
The Tribune first reported five months ago that the group hired Blagojevich, who amid federal scrutiny left her longtime job of being a real estate agent and broker. She was earning about $100,000 a year as the league’s development director.
• • The background: The Sun-Times reported Jan. 8 that the charity raises about $1 million a year but needed to increase that to $2 million. Its big hurdle: Repaying a $10.8 million loan it obtained with help from the Illinois Finance Authority — a state agency created by Gov. Blagojevich — to build the $25 million shelter. In each of Patti Blagojevich’s first three months on the job, the League brought in $10,000 to $15,000 a month — the same as it did before she started, the Sun-Times reported.
• • The backshot: “She did a good job, but the circumstances made it very difficult for her,” said a source on the League’s board. Quoth another source: “She was always a lady at work.”
• • Further translation: “It was obvious the League board found a loophole for her to leave,” said a source.
* The governor, by the way, missed yet another impeachment trial deadline today. He had the right, under Rule 15, to request subpoenas.
The House has filed documents with the Senate under the aforementioned rule, and they will be posted soon at the impeachment tribunal’s website.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s brother said Wednesday the FBI may have recorded as many as 50 of his telephone conversations as part of the federal investigation of corruption in state government.
Robert Blagojevich, who chairs the governor’s Friends of Blagojevich campaign fund, made the statement through his attorneys in papers filed in U.S. District Court in the fraud and bribery case against the governor.
Attorney Michael D. Ettinger said federal prosecutors had given him only one tape of Robert Blagojevich on the telephone but he believes “there are 30 to 50 more conversations wherein he was recorded.”
* And on an unrelated note, Rep. Sara Feigenholtz has a new Internet video up. Feigenholtz is running in the 5th Congressional District special election…
