Free Republic

A real estate venture created by President Barack Obama’s onetime boss and a nephew of former Mayor Richard M. Daley squandered $68 million it was given to invest on behalf of pension plans for Chicago teachers, cops, city employees and transit workers, a Chicago Sun-Times investigation has found. The five public pension funds haven’t made a dime on the investments they made nearly a decade ago with DV Urban Realty Partners, a company created by Obama’s ex-boss Allison S. Davis and Daley nephew Robert G. Vanecko, records show. In fact, the financially troubled pension plans have lost most of the...

For the last three years, Mayor Daley's nephew Robert G. Vanecko has been a frequent figure in the news. First, when the Chicago Sun-Times revealed that five city pension funds gave him $68 million to investment in risky real estate deals. Later, when a federal grand jury began investigating. Now, Vanecko's real estate deals are falling apart, records show, potentially jeopardizing the money he got from the pension funds representing Chicago's police officers, teachers, city employees and CTA workers. And it turns out that other Daley family members were involved in one of those soured deals -- a plan to...