Suburban exec ties Blagojevich fundraising to tollway project

A suburban asphalt executive testifying in the Rod Blagojevich corruption trial said he believed winning a major 2009 tollway project was "coupled" with a pledge to do fundraising for the former governor's campaign fund.

Gerald Krozel, 70, of Willowbrook, took the stand and told how he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Blagojevich's 2002 gubernatorial campaign, but reduced funding before 2006 because "I just didn't like the way things were being addressed with the governor."

Testifying under immunity, Krozel said he was vice president of Bridgeview-based Prairie Material, a cement, gravel and asphalt construction firm, until retiring in 2009. He was also well-positioned to raise money for the governor as chairman of the Illinois division of the American Concrete Pavement Association and as a member of the government-affairs committee of Road Builders, another state lobbying organization for the construction industry.

Krozel said he has worked directly with three Illinois governors, but Blagojevich was the only one to approach him about fundraising, not vice versa.

Krozel testified that by 2008 he was so "uncomfortable" with the then-governor he passed on word about his annual "big event" June fundraiser to colleagues, but did not contribute anything himself, citing "rumors" circulating about corruption.

Yet, Blagojevich fundraiser Alonzo Monk summoned him to a September 2008 meeting with both Rod Blagojevich and his brother Robert at the Friends of Blagojevich offices in Chicago. At that meeting, the governor talked of a $1.5 billion tollway project only he could authorize, adding that he would expand it with a larger $6 billion project to be announced in January.

According to Krozel, the governor then immediately turned the topic of conversation. "He told me that he would like me to do fundraising for him," Krozel testified. "I told him that I didn't know what I could do."

Yet, Krozel testified he understood the implication. "At that point it looked like to me a connection," Krozel said.

Krozel said it was made clear to him that the money needed to be raised by the end of the year, before a new ethics law limiting campaign contributions by state vendors would go into effect, and that was why the announcement of the expanded tollway project was being delayed until January. He said it was linked to the "validity" of fundraising by the construction industry.

"It seemed like in my mind they were coupled," he said.

In a detail the Blagojevich defense team figures to hammer on cross-examination Wednesday, Krozel said that "someone" of the three asked him how much he could pledge, but that Rod Blagojevich in particular "wanted to know how much money I would raise."

Earlier on Tuesday, FBI supervisory special agent Patrick Murphy testified Blagojevich insisted in an official interview with the FBI that he maintained what a "firewall" between campaign fundraising and his official actions as governor and stayed "a million miles away from the issuance of state contracts."

In addition to racketeering, bribery, extortion and conspiracy, Blagojevich is charged with lying to a federal agent.

Murphy said Blagojevich told him that he only occasionally and inadvertently learned contribution information and that he normally did not know details of who was donating and how much - in sharp contrast to later testimony from two former campaign aides who said Blagojevich played an active role in his campaign fundraising operations.

Former campaign finance Director Kelly Glynn testified that Blagojevich kept close tabs on fundraising, and would yell and curse when told that some people weren't meeting their goals. Another former finance director, Danielle Stilz, testified that he would demand specific information about who wasn't meeting fundraising targets and why.

"He had intimate knowledge of those numbers. He knew them better than I did," she said. She added that Blagojevich would even correct her about information at times.

Both said he applied a barnyard epithet to underachieving fundraisers who were all talk and no delivery, including former U.S. Senate candidate Blair Hull among them.

The 53-year-old Blagojevich has pleaded not guilty to charges of scheming to profit from his power to appoint someone to President Barack Obama's old U.S. Senate seat and pressuring people to donate money to his campaign.

His brother, 54-year-old Nashville, Tenn., business executive Robert Blagojevich, has pleaded not guilty to taking part in the alleged Senate scheme and shaking down potential campaign contributors.

Real-estate broker Marianne Piazzi testified Tuesday that she sold a townhouse on Chicago's North Side in August 2003 for about $574,000. She testified that Blagojevich's wife, Patti, had nothing to do with the sale as far as she knew and that she had not known Patti Blagojevich at the time of the sale.

FBI agent Jane Ferguson testified that Patti Blagojevich received more than $14,000 in commission from real-estate developer Tony Rezko for selling the same unit. The testimony was aimed at the prosecution's claim that Patti Blagojevich received payoffs from Rezko, who is awaiting sentencing for scheming to launch a $7 million kickback operation using his clout in the Blagojevich administration.

Earlier Tuesday, Judge James Zagel dismissed a person from the jury panel because of a "critical illness" in the family. The trial started with 12 jurors and four alternates. It was not clear if the dismissed panelist was a juror or alternate. Neither the prosecution nor the defense commented on the matter in court.

Prosecutors told Zagel before the Fourth of July break that they could rest their case as soon as next week. Zagel has to rule on the admissibility of some evidence before the Blagojevich lawyers can mount their defenses.