Tony Rezko sentenced to 10.5 years in prison (wow!)

A federal judge sentenced Tony Rezko to 10 1/2 years in prison Tuesday, describing his actions under Rod Blagojevich’s tenure as “selfish and corrupt.”

Rezko has already served about 44 months. His daughter burst into tears at hearing the sentence.

U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve said she found it offensive that Rezko put at risk the Teachers’ Retirement System by scheming for kickbacks with a board member in 2004.

“You put their retirements at risk for your own greed and your own thirst for power,” St. Eve said.

A pale, thin Rezko gave a brief statement before he learned his sentence, saying “there are no words to describe the pain and regret,” he carries and the amount of suffering his family has endured. He apologized to the court and to his family.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Niewoehner said Rezko’s conduct was severe and included scheming with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and others to control state deals so they could make money off of it.

“That’s about as bad as it can get in a political corruption case,” he said. “Illinois was for sale at the very top levels of our government.” Rezko’s attorney, Joseph Duffy, said his client would never commit a crime again.

Rezko grew clearly agitated as Niewoehner said Rezko overstated poor conditions in county jail. Niewoehner said Rezko got sunlight -- through skylights.

Additional content added to article

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Rezko, a former top fund-raiser to Blagojevich and a onetime friend to President Barack Obama, volunteered to go to jail in 2008 immediately after his conviction on 16 of 24 counts of corruption, including fraud, money laundering and plotting to squeeze $7 million in kickbacks from firms that wanted to do business with the state during Blagojevich’s tenure.

Rezko’s lawyers asked that he be released with just time served.

The government, though, wanted St. Eve to send him away for 11 to 15 years.

Since 2008, Rezko was housed in harsher conditions than most white collar criminals, including about nine months in isolation in a downtown lockup.

Rezko cooperated and delayed sentencing until after both of Blagojevich’s trials.

But prosecutors never used Rezko as a witness in Blagojevich’s trials, saying Rezko’s cooperation wasn’t that helpful, that he initially lied and that their proposed penalty would cover a second criminal case before a different judge involving loan fraud. Defense lawyers say Rezko’s information opened new doors for the government.

http://www.suntimes.com/9001435-452/tony-rezko-former-friend-to-blagojevich-and-obama-to-be-sentenced-today.html

When a prestige house across the street from Tony Rezko's came on the market at 5046 S. Greenwood, Rezko must have thought it was just perfect for Barack and Michelle Obama and their two daughters. Rezko found the house for Obama. Salon.com reported that Donna Schwan of MetroPro Realty, the real estate agent who listed the property, recalled that the deal started when Rezko expressed interest in the listing, according to the Chicago Tribune. The house was evidently perfect, a 96-year-old, multi-story, 6,400-square-foot, brick Georgian Revival home with four fireplaces, six bedrooms, six bathrooms, glass-door bookcases fashioned from Honduran mahogany, and a wine cellar large enough to store 1,000 bottles, the Tribune reported. The house was situated on a large double corner lot, with the vacant lot adjoining the home at the street corner. With a foot-tall concrete barrier and a wrought iron fence surrounding the property, there was no access to the vacant lot, except through Obama's driveway. The neighborhood was in Kenwood, a South Side oasis of pricey homes attractive to the University of Chicago professors who liked to live close to work. The property would be a nice step-up for the Obama family seeking to move from the small Hyde Park condo the couple bought in 1993 for $277,500, where they lived in the eight years Obama was state senator, to a prestige home suitable for the family of a U.S. senator, the Boston Globe reported. The problem was that the doctor and his wife who owned the property, Fredrick E. Wondisford and Sally R. Radovick, wanted to sell the vacant lot and the house at the same time, even though the two properties were separately listed. Also, while the sellers wanted to find a buyer as quickly as possible, they did not want to close the deal until June 2005. The list price just for the home was $1.95 million, outside the reach of the Obama family, even with Obama's re-issued 1995 autobiography, "Dreams from My Father," hitting bestseller lists, his U.S. Senate salary of $157,082, and Michelle's 2005 income of $317,000 at the University of Chicago Hospitals, Lynn Sweet of the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Rezko came up with a solution. His wife Rita bought the vacant lot at the full asking price, permitting Obama and Michelle to negotiate buying the house for $1.65 million, a discount of $300,000 from the asking price. Rita Rezko closed on the vacant lot the same day the Obamas closed on the house, paying $625,000 for the vacant lot.

Even Wikipedia knows Obama reeks of Rezko (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Rezko#Ties_to_Barack_Obama):

Ties to Barack Obama

In 1990, after Barack Obama was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, Rezmar Corp. offered him a job, which Obama turned down. Obama instead took a job with the firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland,[28] which primarily worked on civil rights cases. The firm also represented Rezmar and helped the company get more than $43 million in government funding. The firm’s former senior partner, Allison S. Davis, later went into business with Rezko and, in 2003, was appointed to the Illinois State Board of Investment by Governor Blagojevich at Rezko’s request.[7][29] On July 31, 1995, the first ever political contributions to Obama were $300 from a lawyer, a $5,000 loan from a car dealer, and $2,000 from two food companies owned by Rezko.[30] Starting in 2003, Rezko was one of the people on Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign finance committee, which raised more than $14 million.[7] Rezko threw an early fundraiser for Obama that Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendelland claims was instrumental in providing Obama with seed money for his U.S. Senate race.[1] Obama in 2007-08 identified over $250,000 in campaign contributions to various Obama campaigns as coming from Rezko or close associates, and said that he donated almost two-thirds of that amount to nonprofit groups.[31][32]

In 2005 Obama purchased a new home in the Kenwood District of Chicago for $1.65 million (which was $300,000 below the asking price but represented the highest offer on the property) on the same day that Rezko’s wife, Rita Rezko, purchased the adjoining empty lot from the same sellers for the full asking price.[33] Obama acknowledged bringing his interest in the property to Rezko’s attention,[34] but denied any coordination of offers. According to Obama, while the properties had originally been a single property, the previous owners decided to sell the land as two separate lots, but made it a condition of the sales that they be closed on the same date. Obama also stated that the properties had been on the market for months, that his offer was the best of two bids, and that Ms. Rezko’s bid was matched by another offer, also of $625,000, so that she could not have purchased the property for less.[35]

After it had been reported in 2006 that Rezko was under federal investigation for influence-peddling, Obama purchased a 10 foot (3.0 m) wide strip of Ms. Rezko’s property for $104,500, $60,000 above the assessed value.[7][33] According to Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Mark Brown, “Rezko definitely did Obama a favor by selling him the 10-foot strip of land, making his own parcel less attractive for development.”[36] Obama acknowledges that the exchange may have created the appearance of impropriety, and stated “I consider this a mistake on my part and I regret it.”[35]

On December 28, 2006, Ms. Rezko sold the property to a company owned by her husband’s former business attorney. That sale of $575,000, combined with the earlier $104,500 sale to the Obamas, amounted to a net profit of $54,500 over her original purchase, less $14,000 for a fence along the property line and other expenses.[37][38] In October 2007, the new owners put the still vacant land up for sale again, this time for $1.5 million.[39]

In June 2007, the Sun-Times published a story about letters Obama had written in 1997 to city and state officials in support of a low-income senior citizen development project headed by Rezko and Davis. The project received more than $14 million in taxpayer funds, including $885,000 in development fees for Rezko and Davis. Of Obama’s letters in support of the Cottage View Terrace apartments development, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said, “This wasn’t done as a favor for anyone, it was done in the interests of the people in the community who have benefited from the project. I don’t know that anyone specifically asked him to write this letter nine years ago. There was a consensus in the community about the positive impact the project would make and Obama supported it because it was going to help people in his district.” Rezko’s attorney responded that “Mr. Rezko never spoke with, nor sought a letter from, Senator Obama in connection with that project.[40]

In the South Carolina Democratic Party presidential debate on January 21, 2008, Senator Hillary Clinton said that Obama had been associated with Rezko, whom she referred to as a slum landlord.[41] The LA Times said that a review they did showed that Rezko played a deeper role in Obama’s political and financial biography than Obama had acknowledged.[42] Within days of the debate, a photo of Rezko posing with Bill and Hillary Clinton surfaced. When asked about the photo, Hillary Clinton commented “I probably have taken hundreds of thousands of pictures. I wouldn’t know him if he walked in the door.”[43]

28 now Miner, Barnhill & Galland. Morain, Dan (2008-04-06). “Obama’s lawyer days: brief and not all civil rights”. Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 2008-04-10. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
29 Novak, Tim (2007-11-11). “How reform-minded City Hall critic became a cozy insider”. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
30 Novak, Tim (2007-04-23). “Obama and his Rezko ties”. Chicago Sun\Times. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
31 Chris Fusco; David McKinney, Tim Novak, and Abdon M. Pallasch (2008-03-16). “Obama explains Rezko relationship to Sun-Times”. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2008-03-16.
32 Drew, Christopher; McIntire, Mike (2007-06-14). “An Obama Patron and Friend Until an Indictment”. The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-03-05.
33 Ray Gibson; David Jackson (2006-11-01). “Rezko owns vacant lot next to Obama’s home”. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2008-03-04.
34 “Asked who approached her about the house, Schwan [the seller’s broker] told Salon, ‘I honestly don’t remember. Tony Rezko lived across the street, so he’d been interested in the lot.’”McClelland, Edward (2008-02-01). “How close were Barack Obama and Tony Rezko?”. Salon.com. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
35 McKinney, Dave; Fusco, Chris (2006-11-05). “Obama on Rezko deal: It was a mistake”. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
36 Brown, Mark (2006-11-02). “Obama’s dealings with Rezko buy a parcel of questions”. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
37 The $54,500 figure is before any property tax and other expenses Ms. Rezko incurred during her ownership
38 Jackson, David; Ray Gibson (2007-02-24). “Rezko sells lot next to Obama”. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2008-03-04.
39 Novak, Tim (2007-10-10). “Lot next to Obama can be yours for $1.5M”. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2008-03-04.
40 Novak, Tim (2007-06-13). “Obama’s letters for Rezko”. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
41 Healy, Patrick; Zeleny, Jeff (2008-01-22). “Obama and Clinton Tangle at Debate”. The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-10.
42 Morain, Dan; Hamburger, Tom (2008-01-23). “Obama dogged by ties to donor”. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2011-10-10.
43 “Photo Surfaces Showing Sen. Clinton Posing With Chicago Landlord Rezko”. FOXNews. 2008-01-25. Retrieved 2008-05-10.

Current article comments

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seany

9:59 AM on November 22, 2011

Wow Sun-Times I think that is the 1st time you mentioned ‘thee anointed one’ Barack Obama in a article with Rezko. Good work.

Score: 2
earnest.in.evanston

10:23 AM on November 22, 2011

Looks like Obama needs to make another pardon for his good friend and real estate fairy, Tony Rezco.

Is it 2012 yet?

Score: 1
floyd gondolli

10:35 AM on November 22, 2011

Like seany said, I am surprised this liberal, biased paper mentioned Obama. They normally only mention Blago.

Score: 0
lithoman

10:42 AM on November 22, 2011

Why has it taken so long to sentence him????????

Score: -1
ankhamazighsalahadinwashitawtherelentless

10:43 AM on November 22, 2011

It’s about timing, and Obama thought he’d ride off into the sunset on this guy............He’ll roll...No pardon here..................

Score: 1
ru-connected

10:58 AM on November 22, 2011

Prediction: 10 years with time served.

Score: 1
ru-connected

11:10 AM on November 22, 2011

Ru-Connected is right on target.

http://www.suntimes.com/9001435-452/tony-rezko-former-friend-to-blagojevich-and-obama-to-be-sentenced-today.html

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