Witness details efforts to oppose hospital

The former head of Metra gave jurors in the corruption trial of Antoin "Tony" Rezko an inside look Thursday at lobbying behind a vote to allow a new hospital in Crystal Lake -- in what left him scrambling to find a Rezko ally.

Attorney Jeffrey Ladd, of Woodstock, was hired by Centegra to fight Mercy Hospital's proposal to build in Crystal Lake in 2004 -- a proposal dependent on approval from the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. As a connected Republican, Ladd had a close relationship with planning-board members when it was under a Republican administration.

But with Democrats in charge, Ladd said he sat down with Rezko, a top fundraiser for Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, to try to feel him out on the Mercy issue. At a meeting on Oct. 1, 2003, Ladd gave his pitch but said he couldn't get any read how Rezko felt. So he felt he needed a Democratic lobbyist to get close to Rezko.

"That's correct," said Beck.

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Planning-board member Thomas Beck, a friend of Ladd's, recommended Rezko friend and Chicago Alderman Ed Kelly. So Beck, Ladd and Kelly met on Oct. 23, 2003.

Ladd said he explained that his clients would pay Kelly to simply talk to Rezko and try to influence him on Mercy and other hospital-building issues.

Rezko, although not a public official, wielded considerable clout in Blagojevich's administration. Testimony has shown Rezko played a hand in nominating a majority of the planning board.

Although Kelly was no lobbyist, he quickly warmed to the task and was handsomely rewarded, receiving $20,000 on the Mercy issue alone and $80,000 from Ladd's clients in total, Ladd testified.

Despite Kelly's influence, Ladd got a call the night before the April 21, 2004, vote that the Mercy deal would be approved -- contrary to prior back-channel indications.

As it turned out, board member Stuart Levine had arranged to receive a $1.5 million bribe from the proposed builder of Mercy, he has confessed. Prosecutors say Rezko was going to share in that bribe; Rezko says Levine is a drug-abusing schemer who is falsely implicating him in an effort to stay out of prison for life.

Ladd, who testified under a grant of immunity, said even though Kelly lost on the Mercy vote, his other clients continued to retain him because of something Rezko allegedly told Kelly the morning of the vote. Court hearsay rules prohibited Ladd from saying what that was, but board member Beck has previously testified Rezko said Ladd and Kelly would get other hospital-building decisions to fall their way.

Rezko's lawyer, Joseph Duffy, didn't get far into his cross-examination of Ladd Thursday, but he spent the morning doing his best to convince jurors that any manipulation of the Mercy vote was done by Levine, not Rezko.

Duffy cross-examined Beck, 69, the former chairman of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, getting him to admit it was Levine, not Rezko, who called him repeatedly when Beck said he wasn't prepared to approve the Mercy plan at the April 21 board meeting.

Even after talking to Rezko on April 19, where Rezko expressed his approval of the Mercy project, Beck said he didn't yet feel any pressure from Rezko to approve it. "That's correct," said Beck.

But that same day, after Beck told Levine he wanted to postpone the vote because Mercy's application was substandard, Levine was on the phone to Mercy representatives within minutes, rounding up supplemental materials to try to push the vote through.

Beck also testified that part of his opposition to the Mercy plan was, at least "in the back of my mind," due to his friendship with Ladd and Kelly, both of whom were representing Centegra. "I said (to Rezko) something like, 'How can you do something like that to our friends Ed and Jeff?'" Beck testified.

Duffy then presented Beck with FBI reports of initial interviews with Beck in 2006 where he did not mention any discussion with Rezko of Ladd and Kelly's influence. Duffy intimated Beck had later "remembered" the comments to please the FBI.

"They'd (FBI agents) always say 'Rethink it. #8230; Make sure you've got the steps right,'" said Beck.

"Rezko never told you directly that he wanted the application approved, did he?" concluded Duffy.

"Never did," said Beck.

Jurors will now have to compare that with a telephone recording of Beck and Levine on April 19, 2004, when Beck told Levine he had spoken with Rezko and gotten their "marching orders" for the planning-board vote.

Former Rezko friend Imad Almanaseer, 54, also testified Thursday. He was another planning-board member and said he once invested $500,000 in Rezko restaurants. He was told he could get his money back in two years but had trouble getting it, he testified. He was given $800,000 in 2005, he testified.

Almanaseer, who voted for the Mercy plan, explicitly denied he was ordered to do so by Rezko. He did acknowledge receiving index cards from Beck with instructions on how to vote on certain topics, and that Beck represented the votes were Rezko's preference. Almanaseer is the chairman of pathology at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge and the president of Midwest Diagnostics.