Former Blagojevich adviser Christopher Kelly to plead guilty

Another card may have fallen in the governor's house of cards. Christopher Kelly - one of Gov. Blagojevich's closest advisers, fund-raisers and friends - is set to plead guilty in his federal criminal case, according to a court filing.

Kelly was charged last year with failing to report gambling proceeds. He was not charged with conduct related to state deals but is widely known to be under scrutiny for fund-raising schemes under Blagojevich.

Kelly is pleading guilty only to the tax charges, according to a source who said the timing is unrelated to the governor's charges.

Mayor Daley Rod Blagojevich Tony Rezko Christopher Kelly

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Birds of a feather, flock together. Mayor Daley signed juicy contracts for BCI Roofing, which is owned by Christopher Kelly an embroiled Blagojevich top political aide. The contract is at Chicago O’Hare Airport.

The contract is not to exceed 3.8 million and is now over that amount. Five million in contracts with Mayor Daley and Chicago so far for Christopher Kelly. Guess who is the Chicago Project Manager overseeing the Airport contract?

Mike Levar, is that Patrick “Phat” Levar’s brother? For the best in corruption and clout, vote for Mayor Daley again. Sorry, but I am keeping the real good stuff for court. Also keep an eye out for the overruns at Chicago O’Hare Airport, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Patrick McDonough

Posted by on October 15, 2006 4:33 PM

http://www.chicagoclout.com/weblog/archives/2006/10/mayor_daley_rod_blagojevich_to.html

Friday, December 14, 2007

Chris Kelly’s Campaign Contributions

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Most of the search for meaning in yesterday’s Chris Kelly indictment on income tax evasion charges has rightly focused on his close personal relationship with Gov. Blagojevich.

As we noted in yesterday’s post, the indictment calls into question how the governor vetted advisors; who was bending his ear is worth examining, and the facts alleged in the indictment, if true, suggest that Kelly should not have been a Special Government Agent on behalf of the governor in internal meetings at the Gaming Board.

As a sidebar, the indictment also appears to be a jumping off point to revisit Kelly’s campaign donations to the governor.

For consistency’s sake, here’s our accounting of campaign donations from Kelly and associated entities, based on reports filed with the State Board of Elections and included in the Sunshine Database.

The governor’s campaign fund reports $688,500 in donations and loans from Kelly affiliates.

These include $337K from CGK Consulting, including $250K in loans; $125K from BCI Roofing; $109K from Castle Construction, including a $2,500 donation from Anthony Blum, an employee; and $117,500 from MBB, including $100K in loans.

All of those were reported in 2000-2002. In 2004, Blagojevich’s campaign fund repaid the $250K loan from CGK, and in 2005, they repaid the $100K loan from MBB. Net of those loan repayments, Friends of Blagojevich reports $338.5K in receipts from entities affiliated with Chris Kelly.

Friends of Blagojevich also hired Castle Construction to do work on the Blagojevich campaign headquarters at a cost of $236K during the 2004-2005 winter. But that was payment for actual services, not debt service.

Kelly’s affiliates haven’t given much lately. The great bulk of their giving was to Blagojevich, and all of that was during 2000-2002.

Other top recipients include Chicago Alderman Patrick Levar (including $9,540 directly and $5,600 to the 45th Ward Regular Democrats), Country Club Hills Mayor Dwight Welch ($11K, all in 2006 and 2007), and former Attorney General candidate John Schmidt.

Smaller receipts were reported by legislators ($3K by Lee Daniels, $500 each by Jay Hoffman and Susan Mendoza), Chicago Aldermen ($9K by Ed Burke or the 14th Ward Ad Book Committee, $3K by Danny Solis, $2K by William JP Banks, $1.5K by Carrie Austin, $500 by Patrick O’Connor) and other assorted officials ($2K by Tom Dart, $1.5K by Richard M Daley, $1K by Dan Hynes) and some others.

That John Schmidt contribution was made in December, 1997; it was the second reported donation from a Kelly-affiliate. The first reported contribution by a Kelly-affiliate was a $400 donation from BCI in May, 1997 to then-Secretary of State George Ryan.

http://www.ilcampaign.org/blog/2007/12/chris-kellys-campaign-contributions.html

He (Genson) sure has an unusual perspective:

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5. Ed Genson is already signaling his defense.

“The case that I’ve seen so far is significantly exaggerated. It’s not what people think it is.”

I saw another report that Genson will argue that the Senate seat imbroglio was just “political shop talk.”

But as Mark Brown writes this morning, the “just politics” defense “has come up a loser in several recent federal criminal cases here from George Ryan to Robert Sorich.”

Or, as I wrote in my profile of Genson in 2005 (last time I’ll link to this, I swear!):

It’s a defense he’s been using for years.

When the mobbed-up power brokers of the old First Ward were tried in the early 1990s, Genson told a jury, “This case does not involve fixes. It’s about old men brought up in a different system. It involves favors that are clearly political, but not against the law. That’s all politics is - favors. This, ladies and gentlemen, is old-time politics.’

I asked Genson how he could really believe that.

“The laws governing federal prosecution are so nebulous, they’re so general, that what is a crime to one United States attorney is not a crime to another,” he said. “And what this [U.S. attorney] is doing is taking a political favor and elevating it to a crime. And nobody knew that was a crime.

Now, [Scott] Fawell took a little bit of leeway - a little, but not much. And every one of the things he was indicted for - political people getting state jobs, people on state jobs doing political things while they’re on state jobs - this is not a new thing. The fact is, he did what everyone else did.”

I reminded Genson that the way things have always worked includes a steady pattern of indictments for business-as-usual.

“No!” he bellowed. “No! Because nobody’s ever been indicted for that! Nobody’s ever been indicted for doing that in Illinois.

Oh, yeah, political corruption trials where people take money - I mean, all you gotta do to know that’s illegal is to read the Ten Commandments! But if you sit in your state office and make a bunch of phone calls to the ward committeemen to get their vote, that’s been done forever!”

http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/

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