Rezko Trial Winds Down with Impact Uncertain
By Mark Impomeni
May 13th 2008 8:00AM
Filed Under:eDemocrats, Barack Obama, 2008 President, Scandal
The public corruption trial of businessman and political fundraiser Tony Rezko is expected to end today with closing arguments entered by both sides in Federal District court in Chicago. Rezko stands accused of engaging in kickback schemes involving two powerful Illinois state boards totaling $7 million. Rezko raised funds for a number of prominent Illinois officials, including Sen. Barack Obama, and the outcome of the trial could have an impact on the presidential race. While Obama is not accused of any wrongdoing, a Rezko conviction would be a major embarrassment to his campaign.
The timing of the trial could not have been worse for Obama, whose relationship to Rezko remains in question. Rezko assisted Obama with the purchase of his suburban Chicago home and was a prominent financial backer of the former community organizer's various political campaigns. In 2005, while Rezko was known to be under Federal investigation, Obama entered into a complicated financial transaction involving Rezko to purchase his $1.6 million home while Rezko's wife purchased the adjacent lot, which the home's owner agreed to split off from the property, for $625,000. The Obamas paid $300,000 less than the asking price for the house. Later, Rezko sold a portion of the adjacent lot to the Obamas for $105,000, rendering Rezko's parcel practically unusable. After first stonewalling on questions about the deal, Obama has since admitted that his involvement with Rezko in the transaction lacked judgment, calling it, "a bone-headed mistake."
Federal prosecutors said in their closing argument yesterday that Rezko used the state Health Facilities Planning Board and the state pensions board to extort monies out of companies wishing to gain state contracts. At least three of the members of the Health Facilities Planning Board, including the chairman, made contributions to Rezko before being appointed. Rezko's alleged partner in the scheme, Stuart Levine, testified at the trial that he and Rezko planned to split a $1.5 million kickback paid by a company that wanted to build a hospital in Crystal Lake, Illinois. Prosecutors said that Rezko wan an intimate part of a "corrupt ring of individuals." "He joined the corrupt scheme, he acted in furtherance of it and he did it for money," U.S. Attorney Reid Schar said.
Rezko's lawyers dismissed the allegations from Levine, pointing to his admittedly long history of illegal drug use. "He said he is a felon, he admitted he is a liar many times over, he said he is a thief, and I don't know if he said he was a drug addict, but he was a drug abuser," defense attorney Joseph Duffy said.
However the verdict comes down, the renewed focus on the Obama-Rezko relationship could be bad for Obama's campaign. Fresh off his victory and closer-than-expected loss in North Carolina and Indiana last week, Obama is making the case that the Democratic nomination contest is essentially over. But his rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton, is not yet backing down, and is stressing that she is the more electable candidate for the general election. A Rezko conviction will invite a reexamination of the relationship, tenuous as it may be, between him and Obama. That is surely not the kind of general election campaign kick-off that the Obama campaign envisioned.
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