Free Republic

Tony Rezko's former development partner is broke. ### Dan Mahru -- a lawyer who became an ice peddler and real estate developer -- has filed for bankruptcy, declaring that he and his business partners, including Rezko, owe as much as $95 million to creditors. Mahru estimates his personal debts could be as high as $50 million. Mahru and Rezko split a few years ago. But they're still fighting dozens of lawsuits filed over housing developments they built. "I couldn't handle all the multitude of lawsuits involving Mr. Rezko,'' Mahru says. Mahru lists $48,970.61 in assets in the bankruptcy case he...

Congressman told FBI he asked for -- and got -- free home upgrades ### Convicted political fixer Tony Rezko gave U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez free upgrades on a riverfront town house after the congressman asked for them, Gutierrez told the FBI, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned. Gutierrez's comments to federal agents in a previously undisclosed 2008 interview contradict what the congressman told the Sun-Times in 2006 about the purchase. "I walked in with my wife -- as any other consumer could have -- and purchased the unit at the listed price, with no considerations," the Northwest Side congressman said then,...

On a day that Democrat Alexi Giannoulias released a new commercial slamming him as a liar, Republican Mark Kirk tried to shift the focus back onto Giannoulias’ family bank, saying the bank gave a loan to Nadhmi Auchi, who Kirk said sold arms to Saddam Hussein. “According to the New York Times, he was a banker to Saddam Hussein,” Kirk said of Auchi. “And According to the Observer of London, he was a middleman in the billion-dollar naval arms deal between Hussein and the Italian Navy.” Voters should care, Kirk said: “This is not political Kryptonite -- this is Hemlock,”...

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...

Scandal: Sometimes banks are too small to fail, such as when they are in the president's hometown, deal with the president's friends and serve the president's agenda. Or should we perhaps say too connected to fail? ShoreBank's Web site boasts: "Van Jones saves at ShoreBank so his money fights for green jobs just like he does." It proudly notes, "According to former Vice President Al Gore, 'Van Jones demonstrates conclusively that the best solutions for the survivability of our planet are also the best solutions for everyday Americans.' " That may tell us all we need to know about ShoreBank...

A man who has long been dogged by charges that the bank his family owns helped finance a Chicago crime figure will host a Windy City fund-raiser tonight for Sen. Barack Obama. Alexi Giannoulias, who became Illinois state treasurer last year after Obama vouched for him, has pledged to raise $100,000 for the senator's Oval Office bid. Before he promised to raise funds for Obama, Giannoulias bankrolled Michael "Jaws" Giorango, a Chicagoan twice convicted of bookmaking and promoting prostitution. Giannoulias is so tainted by reputed mob links ... Giannoulias was the bank's vice president and chief loan officer for most...

Regulators on Friday shut down seven banks in Illinois, putting the number of U.S. bank failures this year at 57. The failure of Broadway Bank is expected to cost the FDIC's deposit insurance fund $394.3 million...Broadway Bank was owned by the family of Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, a Democrat who is running for President Barack Obama's old Senate seat. There were 140 bank failures in the U.S. last year, the highest annual tally since 1992 at the height of the savings and loan crisis. They cost the insurance fund more than $30 billion. Twenty-five banks failed in 2008 and only...

<p>Illinois regulators Friday shuttered a Chicago bank closely tied to the Democratic candidate running for President Barack Obama's former U.S. Senate seat.</p> <p>Broadway Bank is owned by the family of Illinois state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, who is locked in a competitive race in this year's elections. His role at the institution has become a central issue in the race.</p>

Broadway Bank, the family-owned lender that helped launch U.S. Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias' political career, was seized by government regulators Friday night, one of seven Illinois institutions taken over and sold to healthier companies. The failure of Chicago-based Broadway, which was unable to raise the $85 million it needed to remain independent, was anticipated, and its worsening health has weighed on Giannoulias' Democratic bid for President Barack Obama's old Senate seat. The bank had been struggling in recent years with real estate loans gone bad, losing $75 million last year. Giannoulias worked for his father at Broadway before entering politics,...

Broadway Bank, owned by the family of Illinois Treasurer, Senate Candidate and Barack Obama ally Alexi Giannoulias (D), was shut down by federal regulators on Friday. While Mr. Giannoulias tried to portray his "father's bank" as a victim of a bad economy, his political opponent sees it differently. A spokeswoman for US Representative Mark Kirk (R) said, "While years of risky lending schemes, hot money investments and loans to organized crime led to today's failure, it's a sad day for Broadway Bank employees who may lose their jobs due to Mr. Giannoulias' reckless business practices."

Regulators prepare to seize Broadway Bank Updated: Friday, 23 Apr 2010, 5:53 PM CDT Federal regulators prepared to seize control of the bank run by the family of U.S. Senate Candidate Alexi Giannoulias late Friday after the bank could not raise enough money to remain afloat.

At some point in the past few weeks, Illinois Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias was sitting in his million-dollar Chicago condo wondering how he could possibly stop the death spiral of his campaign for the United States Senate. Obama-Giannoulias-filtered It had all seemed so perfect just a few months ago—The dashing and urbane Alexi had burst on the political scene only four years ago spending millions of his parents money to win statewide office in his very first foray into politics. He shot hoops with his role model and political patron, Barak Obama. He had wealth, charisma, connections and unbridled ambition and...

Democrat Illinois Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias's polling numbers have taken a hard hit since he won his party's Senate nomination two months ago. Giannoulias now trails GOP Rep. Mark Kirk by 4 points, lagging 33% to 37% according to a survey released Tuesday by Public Policy Polling. That's a 16-point reversal of fortune since the days before his state's February primary, when PPP showed Giannoulias leading Kirk, 42% to 34%. Excerpt.....more at site.

For years there have been under-reported connections between organized crime, Illinois Senate Candidate Alexi Giannoulias and President Barack Obama. But it has just gotten tougher for the president's main stream media accomplices to keep under reporting and Mr. Giannoulias may be the next Jeremiah Wright or Bill Ayers for the administration.

Politics: Another bank failure is nothing new these days — except if the bank is run by the family of a U.S. Senate candidate who profited handsomely and lent millions to a convicted felon. But then, that's the Chicago way. 'I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street," President Obama said in a recent interview with "60 Minutes." Speaking to those bankers, he said: "You guys are drawing down 10, 20 million dollar bonuses after America went through the worst economic year that it's gone through in — in decades,...

It’s a rough way to start the weekend. Chicago Tribune Alexi Giannoulias, the Democrat running for President Barack Obama’s Illinois Senate seat this fall, woke up this morning to see his face blazoned across the top of the Chicago Tribune with the headline: “$20 MILLION IN LOANS TO FELONS.” Broadway Bank, the Giannoulias family bank, has been under scrutiny as it struggles to avoid a federal takeover. Giannoulias’s role at the bank has become a key issue in the Senate race against Republican Rep. Mark Kirk.

The "family bank of Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias loaned a pair of Chicago crime figures about $20 million during a 14-month period when Giannoulias was a senior loan officer" as reported by David Jackson, John Chase and Ray Gibson for the Chicago Tribune: Broadway Bank had already lent millions to Michael Giorango when he and a new business partner, Demitri Stavropoulos, came to the bank in mid-2004. Although both men were preparing to serve federal prison terms, the bank embarked on a series of loans to them. Alexi Giannoulias took a senior position at the bank at about the...

Broadway Bank, owned by U.S. Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias' family, was defrauded in an alleged check-kiting scheme by the owners of a popular Chicago restaurant, Boston Blackies. Nick Giannis and his son, Chris, are charged with stealing nearly $2 million. Chris posted bond and was released Friday from Cook County Jail. His father Nick remains jailed in Detroit. Alexi Giannoulias said Friday in a statement he was "shocked and appalled" at the arrests Thursday of principals in the Boston Blackies restaurant chain. Thirty-eight year-old suspects Chris Giannis and Andy Bakopoulos were picked up in Chicago while Blackies founder 62-year-old Nick...

By now, millions of Americans are familiar with Anita Dunn, who recently resigned her post as Barack Obama’s White House Communications Director after it was learned that she had previously cited Mao Zedong, the late Communist dictator and mass murderer, as one of her “favorite political philosophers.” By contrast, few people know anything substantive about Dunn’s husband, Robert Bauer, who has replaced Gregory Craig as President Obama’s White House Counsel. Craig resigned abruptly on November 13, after having repeatedly denied, for weeks, that he had any plans of stepping down. A 1976 graduate of the University of Virginia School of...

Last night, Fox News’ Sean Hannity ran a six-minute report on Alexis Giannoulias, the onetime state treasurer now running for Barack Obama’s former Senate seat. According to Hannity, “Alexis Giannoulias was at one time considered such a political libality, he was mentioned in the same breath as Bill Ayers” (Obama’s domestic-terrorist-turned-professor pal, who served with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund of Chicago) and Jeremiah Wright” (Obama’s longtime racist pastor and spiritual advisor who embraces Marxism). Giannoulias, an heir to the Broadway Bank fortune, helped Obama get “seed money” for his first political campaign and provided him with...