Fitzgerald further reported that, "Cari and Loren, both formerly prominent Chicago lawyers, each pleaded guilty in the pending TRS fraud case. Kiferbaum, a suburban construction executive, pleaded guilty in the pending Planning Board case."
"All three are cooperating with the government and awaiting sentencing," the release said.
"This basically involved a pay to play scheme on steroids," Fitzgerald told reporters.
Allison Davis, Obama's boss at the law firm, is also listed in legal documents as playing a part in setting up a major extortion attempt in the Board Games case.
In court filings, the government also discusses plans by the schemers to use the State Board of Investments, which invests pension funds for state employees, and the State University Retirement System, which invests pension funds for state university workers, to obtain kickbacks from companies wanting to do business with the pension funds.
In fact, several kickback schemes were already set up when Levine was confronted by the FBI, and failed only because he could not follow through with the deals.
The second indictment unsealed on October 11, 2006, alleges that Rezko fraudulently obtained more than $10 million in loans for a pizza restaurant business from General Electric Capital Corp. Due to the complex nature of the two indictments, the loan fraud case will be discussed in Part II of "Subplots of Operation Board Games."
The indictments issued so far point to only two politicians as specifically getting money from kickbacks resulting from the Board Games' schemes: Governor Rod Blagojevich and Barack Obama. Twenty thousand dollars from the first pay-off was funneled to Obama through a bank account belonging to the pizza businesses.
When Rezko was asked whether he was considering cooperating with the government and testifying against others as part of a plea bargain, he laughed loud and long and said, "Hell, no," according to a report by James Merriner in the November 2007, Chicago Magazine.
"Tell them I'll see them in court," he told Merriner.
Rezko has now been seen in court for about a month and a half. The Chicago Tribune has two reporters, Bob Secter and Jeff Coen, covering the trial at the Federal courthouse in Chicago and every few hours they post excellent highlights of the testimony on "Gavel-to-Gavel" which can be followed this Tribune Rezko court blog.
Credit for much of the testimony cited in this article belongs to the diligent efforts of Sector and Coen in covering the trial. Facts and evidence offered by the government that is cited comes from the indictments, motions, briefs and other court filings.
Stuart Levine was a member of both the TRS board and the Planning Board when Blagojevich took office. During his opening statement, Rezko's lead defense attorney, James Duffy, pointed out that Levine backed a Republican in the 2002 governor's race and said Levine realized "he bet on the wrong horse," when Blagojevich won.
"Mr. Inside was now on the outside," he told the jury. "His ego could not handle it."
He also made a point to mention that Levine had close political ties to Obama and other Illinois politicians.
According to Duffy, the reason Levine started making up stories about having ties to Blagojevich and people close to the governor was to give off the impression of power.
This material is apparently from a website called countercurrents.com. This site lacks an “About Us” type self-descriptive page and research via Google et al. failed to turn up much about it. The site provides links to other sites that it calls progressive. And that’s about it. I can’t say it’s impossible to get more facts about this site, but it’s fair to say that research by a fairly sophisticated surfer failed to do so. “Evelyn Pringle is a columnist for Independent Media TV and an investigative journalist focused on government corruption,” according to the site bushwatch.com. She apparently presides over a blog called “The Smirking Chimp.” About her qualifications, sources, and research methods, I can find little or nothing. I’m not saying this discredits her out of hand, but when she posts an 11-page effusion that is merely part one of a two-part article that is, in turn, part of a three-part series, and is dotted with purple prose (“cesspool of corruption,” “a story that is destined to become the biggest political scandal of the decade,” etc. etc. etc.) it’s fair to ask for her credentials as an investigative journalist and her sources for all these dire revelations. So, fellow readers, if you can supply information about Ms. Pringle and corroboration of her accusations, please help all of us out; or perhaps she herself can give us a reassuring CV and persuasive documentation. Until then, Caveat Lector.
by
Jim Stinson (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 64 comments)
on Friday, April 18, 2008 at 7:40:36 PM
I come from 22 years of living and working in Chicagoland. Obviously, Ms. Pringle's long articles are not taken from the work of the BGA. I could go back to the election of Kennedy over Nixon, when I did live in the area. Or I could think back to the election of Carter, when we were about to retire. In any case, it seems irrelevant to pin all hopes on discrediting Obama by pointing out what most recognize as "Chicago politics." I looked at a couple of the articles and decided their purpose was to criticize Obama through guilt by association. If the writer cares to respond to me, please include in your response whether you read Obama's first book.
I would not have commented here, except that I feel betrayed that a member of OpEdNews would give such a short bio and then proceed to promote an 11-segment dissertation. Please also check out my bio. I'm a lifelong Democrat, during ups and downs. I want the next president to be a Democrat, whether Clinton or Obama. That's who I am.
by
Margaret Bassett (25 articles, 1622 quicklinks, 29 diaries, 976 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 9:27:34 AM
Obama's plan to bring transparency into the govt, and his refusal to accept federal lobbyist money is upsetting the apple cart for:
the moronic mainstream media composed of brainless talking heads and plasticized beauty queens,
the top 1% wealthiest in the US,
the most powerful war profiteers,
the drug and insurance companies.
All of this manufactured whispering campain is coming solely from those sources.
The problem: This is 2008, we have the internet, and we are sick, tired, we're NOT STUPID, we don't have health insurance, we have an illegal war thanks to these monsters and we are fracking bitter.
by
Laura Roslin (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 32 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 10:56:08 AM
“He told the jury about a conversation he had with Blagojevich himself in 2003, in which Blagojevich told him that it would be easer for him to raise money then a senator because now that he was governor, Blagojevich had the power to hand out contracts and state business to people who contributed to his campaign.”
This statement, along with others, erodes your credibility.Obama was not the Illinois senator at the time (2003) and, in fact, was still campaigning for the position.At the time Obama himself did not know that he would be “a senator”.How then, did Blagojevich know this and why did he have a need to use this as an argument for funding?What “senator” was Blagojevich referring to here??Obama’s bid for the presidency was not formed until after the national recognition he garnered from his speech at the 2004 Democratic Convention.
On July 18, 2004, nearly a year before Obama bought the mansion
On September 1, 2005, nearly four months before Obama bought the lot, the Tribune obtained a copy of a June 2005 subpoena issued to the TRS fund and reported that:
I see a discrepancy with your timelines. If September 1, 2005 was “nearly four months before Obama bought the mansion”, how is it that July 18, 2004 was “nearly a year before Obama bought the mansion”?
Generally, your article was informative regarding Mr. Rezko and his shenanigans, but your bias for Ms. Clinton shines through by your stretching and spinning of events and facts.Nice try.
Also.... your sources, the Tribune's Bob Secter and Jeff Coen are highly suspect regarding their bias.The Trib is notorious for slanted, right wing editorializing in their “news reports”.It is my understanding that it was Tribune staff who initiated the investigation in the first place.Only then was it picked up by the Illinois Attorney General (who is seemingly motivated by her own political ambitions to be Illinois governor) and then later by Fitzgerald – whose bias is suspect given the corruption within the Federal Justice Department. Afterall, the scandal has more to do with Gov. Blagojevich. He is official "A", not Senator Obama. I am convinced that neither will be convicted...but time will tell. Look what the "Justice" Department did to Alabama Governor, Don Seigelman.
by
michal54 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 14 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 2:43:00 PM
I usually never post comments on blogs for my articles. In fact, I usually do not read blogs, but I get email alerts from OpEd when comments are posted. After reading some of your comments, I felt the need to explain how it came to be that I wrote the series of articles on Obama.
Although I used to write many political articles, I seldom get a chance to anymore and I confess that I have fallen far behind as far as following political news.
When I realized that I personally knew nothing about Obama and it looked like he might become the nominee, I set out to research his legislative history in Illinois to learn what accomplishments led to his rise to political prominence without me even noticing him.
I ended up spending the last month and a half researching his background, putting in 12 to 18 hours every day, but I did not set out to find the information I found.
If you go back and read the first article I wrote about Hillary and Obama and my belief that Obama was not being qualified for the job you will see that it was written before I began my research and I did not have a clue about anything.
In fact, at that point when a friend asked me who I was going to vote for I said I preferred Hillary but I would definitely vote for Obama if he was the nominee.
I knew absolutely nothing about Illinois politics or the corruption scandals in that state over the past 8 years. The name Rezko did not even register with me other than seeing it mentioned in the headlines for articles about Obama.
The history of the Obama story was terribly complex and I quickly realized why no major news organization had funded the type of investigation I was conducting. Number one, like me they had no idea what would be found at the end, and two, they never in their wildest dreams would they have imagined that the leaders of the Democratic party would not have vetted their own candidate and fit all the pieces together.
Although the research took a lot of time because there were so many trails and so many different people and schemes involved, it did not involve rocket science.
I will admit that it did cross my mind to keep my mouth shut, knowing that no one would have to know that I had discovered the truth before it was exposed by the Republicans. But my conscience quickly reminded me that I would know, and what it would be like if I remained silent.
The Republican have invested a lot more time than I have. They have also put it all together better than I have and are just waiting for the day Obama is nominated to unleash a non-stop expose. They no doubt have their talking points ready for cable news shows and video clips in the can.
That is why I am furious at the Democratic party for allowing this situation to progress to the point we are at now. This is not about whether Hillary beats Obama for me - its about the integrity of the Democratic party and its choice for a candidate who Americans who do not keep up with politics will trust for no other reason than he is vouched for by the leaders they trust.
This is not about mud-slinging - its about telling the truth even when its about my own party. Its about refusing to not expose a Democratic candidate who I know is planning to replace one administration with one that is equally corrupt.
As a journalist I have been having to answer emails from my readers in other countries for 8 years, trying to explain why Americans would allow a war profiteering murderer to stay in power and I am not about to have my name associated with another corrupt administration - this time from the party that I have defended for 8 years.
When I openly supported John Kerry for president, and wrote articles exposing the war profiteering in Iraq, I told my critics to bring me leads if they knew of war profits being funneled to the bank accounts of Kerry or his family members and I would follow up and write the story. No one offered leads and I found none.
I would be a hypocrite of the worst kind if I remained silent during this election simply because Obama was a Democrat.
With an Obama-McCain ticket, voters are in a no win situation. They can elect McCain and allow the slaughtering of our troops to continue in a war profiteeing scheme in Iraq or they can elect Obama and allow the Chicago style of profiteering right here at home to spread to cities all across America.
As I said in my second article, I will not have any part of this. If the Democrats put Obama's name on the ballot, for the first time in my 58 years as an Amercian, I will take a stand and not vote in the presidential election.
But there is no way Obama will beat McCain with or without my vote. If the Democrats keep up this charade through the summer, the election belongs to the Republicans.
I have done the work in untangling the whole mess and tried to write articles so that the average American can "get it." If people do not see what is going on here after reading my first 3 articles, in the famous words of Jack Nicholson, "they can't handle the truth."
If any factual information in the articles is found to be incorrect, please send me an email through the link at the bottom of the article showing me where the information is false and I will make a correction.
A list of some of my other investigative work can be found by clicking on the link at the end of the Obama article on "other articles" by this author.
Evelyn Pringle
by
Evelyn Pringle (188 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 10 comments)
on Saturday, April 19, 2008 at 10:14:48 PM
It's unrealistic and improper to deny you the right to strongly held beliefs, but we can expect you to separate reporting from advocacy, which are inextricably intertwined in both your piece and your comment. If you want us to believe your expose of Obama, present it in a straightforward way. Stuff such as "I am furious at the Democratic party", and "[Obama is] a Democratic candidate who I know is planning to replace one administration with one that is equally corrupt," is permissable (if, in my view, highly debatavble) in an op-ed piece, but in the context of a piece presented as a news report it is not only misplaced; it also saps the credibility of the "facts" you present. For instance, if you truly believe that an Obama administration would be as corrupt as the present regime, which is arguably the most widely and pervasively corrupt, vicious, and downright unlawful in our history, then a reasonable reader would be inclined to question your facts as well as your judgments.
by
Jim Stinson (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 64 comments)
on Sunday, April 20, 2008 at 3:45:25 PM
Look at their voting records Then tell me difference
You sound as though you don't think Hillary is corrupt. Are you asleep or just dead in the head? The only difference between the three presidential candidates is the lies they tell. Look at their voting records Then tell me how different they are.
by
arlen custer (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 246 comments)
on Monday, April 21, 2008 at 7:20:59 AM
I took the time to register on this site just to thank you Ms. Pringle for writing your articles and letting the world know the disquieting truth about Obama. His ties, and his wife's, ties to the very corrupt Richie Daley should be enough to keep any honest let alone progressive person from supporting or voting for Obama. If he is nominated the swiftboaters and Republicans will merely have to expose the truth and Obama will lose as the independents avoid him and the young starry eyed voters are disillusioned.
by
ra Good (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Friday, April 25, 2008 at 9:39:39 PM
9 comments
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