Defense tries to distance Rezko from kickback schemes

Key prosecution witness Stuart Levine has left the building, his testimony now completed. But Antoin "Tony" Rezko's attorney still is trying to convince jurors that Levine acted on his own -- not at Rezko's behest -- as he tried to shake down firms for more than $8 million in kickbacks and political contributions.

Defense attorney Joseph Duffy spent much of Wednesday's session in Rezko's corruption trial cross-examining prosecution witness Joseph Cari. Duffy worked to soften any damage his client might have incurred Tuesday when Cari recounted an October 2003 conversation with Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Cari said the governor spoke of presidential aspirations and the ease of raising campaign cash because governors control contracts and investment opportunities.

Blagojevich denies that conversation ever occurred.

Cari also testified Tuesday that Rezko once told him he was the one who decided whom the administration hired for legal and consulting work.

Wednesday morning, Cari acknowledged under cross-examination that he never heard from Rezko again after that single meeting. It was consistently Levine, Cari testified, who lobbied him to use his connections to help set up an investment -- and accompanying kickback -- with a New York firm. It was Levine, he testified, who became increasingly agitated, even "menacing," when the New York deal was slow to materialize. It was Levine, Cari testified, who pledged to help Cari's private equity firm obtain investment opportunities from Wisconsin public pensions.

Duffy walked Cari through cross-examination revealing more than a year of frequent contact between Levine and Cari but no additional contact between Rezko and Cari. Cari's interaction with Levine, he testified, lasted until federal agents approached first Levine and then him with questions that eventually led to the indictment of both. Both have pleaded guilty -- Levine in exchange for a recommended sentence reduction from life in prison down to 67 months.

Cari acknowledged he told investigators in 2005 that he had engaged in criminal activity on Levine's behalf. Later Wednesday, Clyde Robinson, an executive of Virginia-based equity firm J.E. Robert Cos., or JER, described Cari's clumsy attempts, ultimately leading to his indictment, to push JER into signing a consultant's contract just days before the firm was scheduled to possibly receive an investment allocation from the Illinois Teachers Retirement System.

Cari had earlier testified that he did, in fact, put heat on JER, telling it failure to sign the contract immediately and fax it to a number in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean would cost it a chance at a share of TRS business. Cari said he called at Levine's insistence. Levine, Cari testified, was frantic that the TRS board, with its next meeting only days away, might allocate funds to JER without the consultant's contract and its $750,000 "finder's" fee in place. Such contracts, prosecutors allege, constituted one way in which Levine and Rezko collected illegal kickbacks.

Cross-examined by Rezko's attorney, though, Robinson said Rezko's name never came up as JER was being told it must hire a consultant to qualify for TRS money. Nor, Robinson testified, was Rezko's name ever mentioned by the placement agent that JER had hired as a legitimate intermediary between his company and the Illinois Teachers Retirement System.

Scheduled to testify this morning is Chicago businessman Charles Hannon. Levine testified early during the trial that Hannon was the designated conduit to receive the JER kickback, which never materialized because JER executives became highly suspicious about the manner in which Cari approached them.