Posted on 08/02/2010 1:19:50 PM PDT by STARWISE
By February 2006, businessman and political fixer Tony Rezko was already politically radioactive, caught up in a federal investigation that would see him criminally charged by the end of that year.
News reports had linked Rezko, a key adviser and campaign fund-raiser for then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, to shady deals involving state pension funds -- among the crimes that ultimately would send him to prison.
In 2006, Tony Rezko (inset) sought a loan to develop a 62-acre parcel of land at Roosevelt and Clark.
(Rezko, Auchi)
This was the Tony Rezko who, looking for millions of dollars for a massive South Loop development, turned to Broadway Bank, owned by the family of Alexi Giannoulias. Giannoulias, the Democrat now running for U.S. Senate, had left his post as a senior loan officer at the Chicago bank in late 2005 to mount a successful campaign for Illinois state treasurer, though he still held an ownership stake in the bank.
Rezko's company asked. And Broadway Bank came through.
On Feb. 14, 2006, newly obtained records show, the bank made a $22.75 million loan to a company called Riverside District Development LLC, whose owners, it turns out, included Rezko.
You won't find Rezko's name on any documents filed in the public record in connection with the loan.
But Rezko acknowledged his ownership stake in Riverside District Development to a federal judge about a year after the loan was made, according to a transcript of the court hearing.
The loan could prove to be a political liability for Giannoulias as he campaigns against his Republican opponent, U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, for the Senate seat now held by Roland Burris. Not only does its disclosure come during the Senate campaign, but records show the loan was made while Broadway Bank was already having problems with an earlier loan to another Rezko company.
Federal authorities shut down the bank in April.
Giannoulias, who touted his experience at Broadway Bank in his campaign to win election as state treasurer, has said its failure was the result of the national economic slowdown and the pullback in the real estate market, in which it invested heavily.
Through a spokeswoman, Giannoulias says he knew nothing about the $22.75 million loan to Riverside District Development until reporters contacted him.
"Alexi left daily operations of the bank in September of 2005, months before this loan was made," says Kathleen Strand of his campaign staff. "He had no knowledge of it, and his name is not on any documents related to the loan.
"This guilt-by-association story is an unfortunate and failed attempt to link Alexi to Mr. Rezko.''
Rezko's relationship with the bank developed through his friendship with the bank's founder, family patriarch Alexis Giannoulias, Alexi Giannoulias' father, who died in June 2006.
Giannoulias' brother Demetris Giannoulias is the only Broadway Bank official named in public records regarding the loan, which involved a large, vacant piece of property in the South Loop -- 62 acres at Roosevelt Road and Clark Street -- that Rezko had been trying to develop.
He hoped to build more than 4,000 homes along the Chicago River there, but he couldn't get City Hall to agree to provide $140 million in tax money to help pay to build roads and put in sewers to make the project work.
Broadway Bank made the loan even though another Rezko company, Chicago Hudson LLC, had fallen behind on a $10.9 million loan it got from the bank four years earlier. That loan -- for a proposed high-rise condo building at 750 N. Hudson on the Near North Side that never got built -- ended up in Bankruptcy Court.
The property ended up being sold to another developer. Broadway Bank received $11.5 million from the sale, which took place July 31, 2006.
Following Rezko's indictment in October 2006, he and his lawyers met in January 2007 with U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve to discuss his assets. During that closed-door hearing, Rezko disclosed his ownership stake in Riverside District Development, the company that got the $22.75 million loan from Broadway Bank.
Rezko's lawyers said his main partner in Riverside was General Mediterranean Holding, a Luxembourg company controlled by Iraq-born billionaire Nadhmi Auchi.
In a January 2008 court filing in Rezko's case, federal prosecutors in Chicago wrote that Auchi was "convicted several years ago in France on fraud charges" and sentenced to 15 months in prison, "but the sentence was suspended as long as Auchi committed no new crimes."
Auchi has said he has done nothing wrong and has sought to distance himself from Rezko. Auchi's lawyer, Alasdair Pepper, says Rezko no longer has a stake in the 62-acre site, which remains vacant.
Financial institutions typically file a document called a "release of lien'' when a loan is repaid. There's nothing on file with Cook County Recorder of Deeds Eugene Moore's office to show that Riverside District Development repaid the six-month loan from Broadway Bank, which was due Aug. 14, 2006.
But Giannoulias' campaign office says the loan was paid off early. Auchi's lawyer provided documentation to support that, showing the loan was repaid in July 2006.
According to Giannoulias and Auchi, Riverside District Development paid off the Broadway Bank loan with money it obtained from a $27 million loan from another financial institution: Mutual Bank.
Like Broadway Bank, Mutual also ended up getting shut down by federal regulators -- though the loan was paid off, records show. Like Rezko, Mutual's president, Amrish Mahajan, had been a top fund-raiser for Blagojevich.
President Obama will return to Chicago on Aug. 5 to stump for Illinois Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias.
"We're excited to welcome President Obama back to Illinois to campaign with Alexi in early August," said campaign manager Michael Rendina in a statement.
~~~~~~~
Oh my ... and the jury is still deliberating the fate of -0's, Giannoulias' and Rezko's buddy Blago.
"... and an angel in the whirlwind still directs this storm"
Dot dot dot to dot...Then fill in with the appropriate numbered colors....Green as in money. Gonna add to CCT.
Bank kiting?
These guys must have trained at the Calhoun (GA) First National Bank under our former head of OMB........Bert Lance.
and there’s that name again.....Rezko, it keeps popping up like repeat herpes.
8 things you need to know about Obama and Rezko
Tale in national spotlight, thanks to Clinton
January 24, 2008
###
But Monday, he became national news — and an issue in the presidential race. That’s when Hillary Clinton blasted Obama for having represented “your contributor, Rezko, in his slum landlord business in inner-city Chicago.”
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.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/watchdogs/757340,CST-NWS-watchdog24.article
~~~
Where’s the Feds now ?
Publius Forum on 08.02.10 at 2:30 PM -By Warner Todd Huston
Tony Rezko has been at the root of many of Illinois' worst cases of government corruption and influence peddling with ties that go back decades. He's been tied to President Obama, indicted Governor Rod Blagojevich, and now Senate Democrat candidate Alexi Giannoulias whose family bank loaned the crook almost $23 million.
Worse, the Giannoulias family bank made the loan to Tony Rezko's development group long after he'd become "politically radioactive," as the Chicago Sun-Times puts it.
On Feb. 14, 2006, newly obtained records show, the bank made a $22.75 million loan to a company called Riverside District Development LLC, whose owners, it turns out, included Rezko.
You won't find Rezko's name on any documents filed in the public record in connection with the loan.
But Rezko acknowledged his ownership stake in Riverside District Development to a federal judge about a year after the loan was made, according to a transcript of the court hearing.
Granted Alexi was gone from the bank when the loan was made, but this loan combined with the loans made to two mobsters to the tune of $20 million (that was never paid back) and the fact that the bank failed shows a history of bad banking practices, insider activity, and political backscratching by the Giannoulias family.
Let's face it... one of the big qualifications that Giannoulias used to run for State Comptroller's office was his wonderful experience in the Broadway Bank. But as each month passes we are finding that his bank was more and more irresponsible and corrupt.
And this guy with such a shady past wants to be our senator?
Illinois Dem faces more questions about Rezko loans
By Sean J. Miller - 08/02/10 08:29 AM ET
###
As President Obama prepares to travel to Chicago for a fundraiser for Democrat Alexi Giannoulias, the Illinois Senate candidate faces renewed questions about his family’s bank.
New records show jailed developer Tony Rezko held an ownership stake in a development project that received a previously undisclosed loan from Giannoulias’s Broadway Bank.
In February 2006, the Chicago Sun-Times reported, the bank made a $22.75 million loan to Riverside District Development LLC, whose owners included Rezko.
The Giannoulias camp denied he knew about the loan. “Alexi left daily operations of the bank in September of 2005, months before this loan was made,” a spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, the president is set for an Aug. 5 fundraiser for Giannoulias in Chicago.
Giannoulias previously has been on the receiving end of fundraising help from Vice President Joe Biden and other top administration officials. Raising money has been a problem for the Democrat since Broadway Bank’s collapse in April, his most recent Federal Election Commission filings show.
Tony Rezko kown it all
Its the “Chicago Way”. Nothing to see here.
~~ Ping!
Remember Rezko is a mule...working for others. He got his start as business manager for Ali, the boxer, under the direction on Louis F. He made his money by putting together “deals” for others.
THIS being said....WHO was he working for in the above? WHO is he fronting for?
Wish I had one of Beck’s chalkboards.....to lay it all out.
“Rezko’s lawyers said his main partner in Riverside was General Mediterranean Holding, a Luxembourg company controlled by Iraq-born billionaire Nadhmi Auchi.”
There’s Auchi yet again as well. Sure would love to know the other ‘silent’ partners in crime. Could Obama or any of his cronies be partners?
Some great Auchi background info here:
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/iraqi-billionaire-threatens-reporters-investigating-rezko-affair/
I have the utmost confidence that the Illinois Democrat machine will ensure that Giannoulias wins. The dead from every graveyard in the state will be registered and will either show up at the polling places or send in an absentee ballot.
COURTESY OF FREEPER POTLATCH
(That's Alexi in the cello case.)
Awesome !
(and swiped .. ;)
It’s the Chicago way.... That Tony. What else does he know? Great graphic, Liz!
Begging forgiveness. I forgot to ping you! Great graphic POTLATCH via Liz.
LOL!!
*snip*
Rezko’s relationship with Barack Obama goes back to at least 1990, when Obama’s law firm did work relating to thousands of now-decaying Rezko apartment units in South Chicago. Rezko was a key early-money fundraiser in Obama’s state Senate campaigns and his failed run at the U.S. Congress.
According to The Times of London, “Mr. Auchi first met Mr. Rezko after the 2003 Iraq war and they have a business relationship.” At the time Auchi was facing the possibility of extradition to France. The Times of London explains: “Mr Auchi was convicted of corruption, given a suspended sentence and fined £1.4 million in France in 2003 for his part in the Elf affair, described as the biggest political and corporate scandal in post-war Europe. He, in a statement from his media lawyers, claims he is appealing against the sentence.”
In 2003, Nick Cohen of the UK Guardian wrote:
Allow me to introduce you to Nadhmi Auchi. He was charged in the 1950s with being an accomplice of Saddam Hussein, when the future tyrant was acquiring his taste for blood. He was investigated in the 1980s for his part in alleged bribes to the fabulously corrupt leaders of post-war Italy. In the 1990s, the Belgium Ambassador to Luxembourg claimed that Auchi’s bank held money Saddam and Colonel Gadaffi had stolen from their luckless peoples.
In 2002, officers from the Serious Fraud Squad raided the offices of one of Auchi’s drug companies as part of an investigation of what is alleged to be the biggest swindle ever of the (British National Health Service). With allegations, albeit unproven, like these hanging over him, wouldn’t you think that British MPs would have the sense to stay away?
But after threats from Carter-Ruck, Cohen’s “defamatory” article became one of six Guardian and Observer articles scrubbed from the Internet this April.
Blogger “A Jacksonian” received a similar demand on or before June 24. His article is still up. It details much of the information contained in the six deleted Guardian/Observer articles.
Source of Wealth
Auchi in 1967 began an Iraq Oil Ministry career eventually rising to be Director of Planning and Development under the Baathist dictatorship. He formed GMH in 1979 and then left Iraq. A key source of weapons procurement for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, GMH became the largest single private shareholder of Banque Nationale du Paris (BNP) which later merged with Paribas to form BNP-Paribas. BNP and BNP-Paribas, at Saddam Hussein’s insistence, handled all Oil-for-Food transactions until 2001 when the incoming administration of George W. Bush demanded change.
Investigative journalist Bill Gertz explains:
“A 2004 Pentagon report obtained by The Washington Times identified Auchi as a global arms dealer and Iraqi billionaire ‘who, behind the facade of legitimate business, served as Saddam Hussein’s principle (sic) international financial manipulator and bag man.’
Rest here
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/iraqi-billionaire-threatens-reporters-investigating-rezko-affair/
I would wager Auchi’s money and Obama/US govt and NGOs are connected to many powerful enterprises and exert great influence in today’s Iraq situation, and who knows: maybe in OUR despicable Obamacare and govt bureaucracies.
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