Posted on 01/24/2008 5:30:19 PM PST by Nachum
All of a sudden, seems as if everybody's talking about Barack Obama and Tony Rezko. Even Jay Leno.
Rezko already was a big story in Chicago, accused of influence-peddling in the Blagojevich administration and set to face trial Feb. 25.
Having a hard time keeping track of the facts? Here are eight things to know:
1. They met in 1990. Obama was a student at Harvard Law School and got an unsolicited job offer from Rezko, then a low-income housing developer in Chicago. Obama turned it down.
2. Obama took a job in 1993 with a small Chicago law firm, Davis Miner Barnhill, that represents developers -- primarily not-for-profit groups -- building low-income housing with government funds.
3. One of the firm's not-for-profit clients -- the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., co-founded by Obama's then-boss Allison Davis -- was partners with Rezko's company in a 1995 deal to convert an abandoned nursing home at 61st and Drexel into low-income apartments. Altogether, Obama spent 32 hours on the project, according to the firm. Only five hours of that came after Rezko and WPIC became partners, the firm says. The rest of the future senator's time was helping WPIC strike the deal with Rezko. Rezko's company, Rezmar Corp., also partnered with the firm's clients in four later deals -- none of which involved Obama, according to the firm. In each deal, Rezmar "made the decisions for the joint venture," says William Miceli, an attorney with the firm.
4. In 1995, Obama began campaigning for a seat in the Illinois Senate. Among his earliest supporters: Rezko. Two Rezko companies donated a total of $2,000. Obama was elected in 1996 -- representing a district that included 11 of Rezko's 30 low-income housing projects.
5. Rezko's low-income housing empire began crumbling in 2001, when his company stopped making mortgage payments on the old nursing home that had been converted into apartments. The state foreclosed on the building -- which was in Obama's Illinois Senate district.
6. In 2003, Obama announced he was running for the U.S. Senate, and Rezko -- a member of his campaign finance committee -- held a lavish fund-raiser June 27, 2003, at his Wilmette mansion.
7. A few months after Obama became a U.S. senator, he and Rezko's wife, Rita, bought adjacent pieces of property from a doctor in Chicago's Kenwood neighborhood -- a deal that has dogged Obama the last two years. The doctor sold the mansion to Obama for $1.65 million -- $300,000 below the asking price. Rezko's wife paid full price -- $625,000 -- for the adjacent vacant lot. The deals closed in June 2005. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko's wife $104,500 for a strip of her land, so he could have a bigger yard. At the time, it had been widely reported that Tony Rezko was under federal investigation. Questioned later about the timing of the Rezko deal, Obama called it "boneheaded" because people might think the Rezkos had done him a favor.
8. Eight months later -- in October 2006 -- Rezko was indicted on charges he solicited kickbacks from companies seeking state pension business under his friend Gov. Blagojevich. Federal prosecutors maintain that $10,000 from the alleged kickback scheme was donated to Obama's run for the U.S. Senate. Obama has given the money to charity.
Rezko’s wife paid full price — $625,000 — for the adjacent vacant lot. The deals closed in June 2005. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko’s wife $104,500 for a strip of her land, so he could have a bigger yard
In the real world this is called bribery
“In the real world this is called bribery.”
I’ll admit I am a bit past my sell by date and so possibly confused, but after 31 years in the practice of law, I must be missing something here. How do you find bribery on the simple facts you laid out?
“The doctor sold the mansion to Obama for $1.65 million “
What a great country where a civil servant can afford a million dollar house!
All of a sudden?
As if, by coincidence, a news story beneficial to Hillary, whose Marxist tentacles run deeply through the entire media, just happens?
To me it’s immaterial whether Obama is a corrupt snake or a pillar of morality. He can’t run this country; he’s a liberal.
“What a great country where a civil servant can afford a million dollar house!”
Maybe Terry McCauliff fronted him the money, just like he fronted the Clintons the money to buy their house in Chappaqua.
She paid $625,000 for a piece of property, then sold it to Obama for $104,000 only six months later.
Unless something happened to significantly reduce the market value of that lot, in those six months, she gifted him with approximately $500,000 - and did it in a way so that looks as if it were designed to avoid reporting requirements.
I would like to get the deal he received but not being a senator I guess I wont. Why? What was given for this.
“She paid $625,000 for a piece of property, then sold it to Obama for $104,000 only six months later.”
The article says she sold him a “strip” of her property which would indicate to me that she sold less than the whole thing. Unless we know what “strip” she sold, its pretty hard to tell if Mrs. Rezko was bribing anyone, wouldn’t you say?
“I would like to get the deal he received but not being a senator I guess I wont. Why? What was given for this.”
What makes you think that he didn’t pay full price for what he got?
Nah we know better then that
“Nah we know better then that.”
You’re likely right about that, but I come from the “spoils” system of politics so it doesn’t bother me so much. In that system, the good luck or shrewd planning behind being in the right place at the right time is something to be admired unless its the hack from the other party who’s reaping that benefit, in which case its called corruption. But if the other side has half a brain, you never want to shout corruption unless you’ve got at least some facts to back it up, otherwise the claim won’t pass the milk through the nose test...even if its absolutely true.
10-4
Just a "strip"? One can subdivide lots in that neighborhood willy nilly, any 'ol which-a-way? What's really going on?
This "just a strip of land" portion of this story, looks to me to have a potential for blowing up, either way. If Obama is lying [or can be found to be feeding lies to the press] about this, the stink of it will help keep the rest of this albatross hanging around...
If it truly was only a "strip", then anyone wishing to attempt to use this as ammo for a talking point of criticism, should be careful it doesn't backfire.
That said, part of the backstory might lay in subdividing the lot(?), if that is what really occurred, instead of the "just a strip" element, being simply CYA from the Obama camp. Otherwise, I suppose it could be possible that there was more than one pre-existing neighboring lot, bought and controlled by Resko's wife? I don't know about Illinois, but where I live, altering land records post facto, could be pretty hard to do...older copies of records might surface, heheh...
I read mention of, in a previous article, that this adjacent lot, or land [so suspiciously bought in the same exact month as the Obama's bought the house next door] was "landlocked" with no right-of-way access to any of the surrounding streets.
Now, if the Obama's can prove that they traded, in part, previously unavailable access to this supposedly beleaguered lot, then they may be in the clear. Providing access to the neighboring lot though, would still beggar belief, since the Obamas have gone on record as saying they bought this neighboring land for "additional privacy". Ok, so forget that part...but what about...the rest of Resko's [ahem] "wife's" land there? What are these Reskos doing, buying and selling expensive properties, when they only recently had defaulted on mortgage payments for tax-payer subsidized land & housing, which was supposed to go to help 'the poor and dis-enfranchised' Obama is portraying himself to be such a big fat hero for???
Just what was what, in this *deal*? Any lurkers out there with more real info? Please chime in. This is so tangled, it's easy to get confused here. But then again, this type of crap seems to always be deliberately designed to be confusing. It helps the grifters [in this case, the Reskos, at least] cover their tracks...or try to B.S. their way out of it, once they get caught! Like the Clintons have done, so many times.
If Obama bought more than 1/6th of the property, then he paid less than the original price. Otherwise, I don’t see any big crime here, especially compared to the clinton’s 35-yr record of criminality.
petty change compared to Billary
How did Obama make his money? Is he a lawyer?
The strip of land sold to Ob(s)ama made the propery too small to develop. Basically Obama got the Rezko property for 1/6 the amount paid.
SSSSSHhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.