Rezko roundup

A regular look at sidelights from the Antoin Rezko trial by Daily Herald Staff Writer Rob Olmstead.

Cook County Connections

Tony Rezko has long enjoyed a cozy relationship with the Cook County Department of Public Health. Earlier trial documents revealed that the former fundraiser for Gov. Rod Blagojevich once got a $50,000 loan from the most recent head of the bureau of health, Dr. Robert Simon. Simon says Rezko paid the money back in full.

Rezko's wife Rita and several other relatives are employed by the department as well.

Turns out, Rezko also had an admiration for one of Simon's predecessors, Dr. Ruth Rothstein, for whom the county's AIDS-busting CORE center is named. Rezko had tried to use his clout to get Rothstein onto the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, testified the governor's ex-staffer Jill Hayden. Apparently, however, there was a conflict that did not allow her to serve - perhaps because the planning board also regulates Cook County public health facilities.

Another connection Rothstein and Rezko share is their choice in PR representatives. Rezko hired spinmeister Guy Chipparoni at one time to do work for his Rezmar company, and Rothstein also used him in a mini-crisis the late Cook County Board President John Stroger started a few years ago when he thought it would be clever to announce during a board meeting that FBI agents had interviewed Ruth Rothstein. Rothstein hadn't done anything wrong, but the feds wanted to know what she could tell them about Faust Villazan and his role in a crooked radiology contract at Stroger Hospital (Villazan later went to prison). According to billing records filed in Cook County Chancery Court, Rothstein's lawyer James Montana billed county taxpayers for several conference calls the day after Stroger blabbed. Among the parties he confabbed with were Rothstein, Chipparoni, Dick Devine and others.

Things to come

Long before the crooked April 21, 2004, vote on the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board to grant Mercy Hospital permission to build in Crystal Lake, there were warning signs about member Stuart Levine and chairman Tom Beck. When Blagojevich rode into town, one of the things he did was pass ethics legislation mandating that state board members could not be lobbyists and that board members keep time cards, among other things. Stuart Levine and Tom Beck refused to follow the new legislation, saying it didn't apply to their board.

Lawyers working under Gov. Rod Blagojevich's legal counsel, Susan Lichtenstein tried to rein in the duo, without success. Mary Anderson, a lawyer in the office, wanted to threaten Beck with removal if he didn't comply and asked Lichtenstein for such permission in a March 2004 e-mail. The trial exhibits don't indicate how Lichtenstein or higher ups felt about that. But when Anderson asked why they didn't want to follow the ethics legislation, they replied it was "ridiculous."

"Truly, that is the entirety of their argument," said Anderson in the e-mail.

Another lawyer, Deb Golden, said in another e-mail of the Beck and Levine: "They don't care if the governor is embarrassed by their refusal to follow the ethics legislation."

Among those cc'd with that e-mail? The governor's chief of staff, Lon Monk.

Not THAT Patrick Fitzgerald

One of the names to come up during the trial this week was none other than Patrick Fitzgerald. The name was among a list of names of those up for state board appointments. The false impression that the lawman might have some political dirt of his own lasted all of a few hours until federal prosecutors got to redirect a witness and establish that, no, it was not U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald who had been recommended for a state post, but another Patrick Fitzgerald.

One last irrelevant Obama mention

There was one more parenthetical mention of Obama this week during the testimony of Jill Hayden. Defense attorneys noted that the Obama's name popped up as one of two people to recommend someone for a state board appointment. The post? A spot on the Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan board. His recommendation? Tracy Lynn Bradley. Yawn.