Golden (67 page)

So Aramanda unwittingly became a pass-through for Rezko to get funds out of the POB deal. Kjellander had collected the $809,000 in payments for his consulting arrangement, and Rezko had worked things so that some $475,000 went from Kjellander, through Aramanda, to his own creditors. Thousands went to Al Chaib and others. Aramanda testified that he called Rezko's secretary and was given a list of names and amounts and wiring instructions, which he followed.

Kjellander considered the $600,000 a loan, which Aramanda was expected to pay within a year, and he was on the hook for it despite getting to pump about $125,000 into his pizza franchises. When the bill came due, Rezko hooked Aramanda up with his friend Jay Wilton from the tollway rest stop arrangement, who loaned Aramanda more money to pay Kjellander and who eventually purchased some of the restaurants himself.

But as he questioned Aramanda, Niewoehner was just as interested in having him talk about another proposal Rezko had made to him. Aramanda remembered Rezko saying it could mean more than a million dollars annually. The businessman might be able to start a consulting firm that could act as a middleman on deals with state pension funds. Aramanda could get to know people at the firms and others who dealt with them and then use Rezko's connections to get the firms' state approvals. There was someone already involved in such “work,” Aramanda was told, and perhaps they could get connected and form a partnership. It was Sheldon Pekin, who Aramanda understood was already in line to collect $750,000 as a finder's fee on a deal to bring Glencoe Capital an allocation from TRS.

The two did meet, and Aramanda agreed to accept $250,000 from Pekin, which Aramanda thought could be the beginning of a business they might be in together. But as soon as Aramanda had the money in hand, Rezko was again directing that the money go to his own associates. Aramanda testified that he gave $40,000 to a Rezko creditor. He went along, Aramanda told Niewoehner, because he felt somewhat obligated to Rezko for introducing him to the new opportunity in the first place. Aramanda never testified that he felt like a tool that Rezko used to funnel money out of state contracts.

To bolster what Aramanda was saying, prosecutors went to tapes from the Rezko and Levine investigation, which had been played to the jury that convicted Rezko in 2008. There was Stuart Levine's voice in a courtroom again, stammering and stuttering through the speakers. Levine was chastising Pekin for asking whether Christmas was coming early and warning that
if more money didn't go to Rezko soon, “Tony's not gonna do business any more like that.”

Ultimately, Aramanda said, he decided the “business” wasn't for him.

Instead of the million dollars or so a year, Aramanda would be placed on a much lower salary, with the opportunity to do better if there were more finder's fees to go around. In other words, Rezko was altering the deal. Because of the size of some of the transactions that were going to come together, “[Rezko] would be sharing in the transactions along with others,” Aramanda told Niewoehner, and said Rezko mentioned three other people who would have their fingers in the pie as well.

“Lon, Chris, and Rod,” Aramanda said. “I understood he must have some arrangement with the three others he mentioned, and some way of splitting the fees.”

Former national Democratic fundraiser Joseph Cari looked a bit like Dustin Hoffman as he took the witness stand. He had dyed, mussed hair and wore an expensive-looking suit.

Assistant US Attorney Reid Schar walked him through ground he had covered during Rezko's trial, as he explained how he got tied up with the Blagojevich camp. Cari was a Democrat but actually had supported Blagojevich's opponent, Jim Ryan, in 2002, because his wife was battling cancer and so was the Republican candidate. But after the election was over, David Wilhelm, a close friend of Cari's, came off a campaign job with Blagojevich to take a position leading the transition team.

“David wanted me to meet the people around the governor,” Cari said, adding that meant mostly Rezko and Kelly. Team Blagojevich was still pumped from his win, and Blagojevich had the White House on his mind.

Cari said he eventually met with Kelly and then with Levine to talk about what it took to put together a national fund-raising organization. Cari had led fund-raising for Al Gore and remembered the weeks he spent in Florida “counting chads,” in reference to the disputed 2000 presidential election.

Cari said Levine took notes throughout their meeting and promised he would be sharing them with Rezko. But the witness was there to mention one episode in particular. It was his recollection of the October 2003 fundraiser in New York that he agreed to help set up with his friend Carl McCall, the former New York comptroller.

Cari said he went to O'Hare International Airport to fly to New York on Levine's private jet, and those on the flight included Kelly, Levine, and Blagojevich. Cari said he found himself in a conversation with Blagojevich that centered on politics, shifted to the craziness of Florida in 2000, and segued from there into national fund-raising. Blagojevich told him he wanted to run for president and pointed to former president Bill Clinton as a success story he could model himself after. Clinton had run as governor of Arkansas, and that was way better than using something like Congress as a platform.

“As a sitting governor he had an ability to raise a lot more money than a sitting US senator,” Cari said.

Blagojevich saw the same chances for himself coming out of Illinois. “As a sitting governor you're giving out contracts and legal work and consulting work, and you can go back to those people and ask for money,” Cari said the governor told him.

What was Blagojevich saying? Schar asked.

“That he would be giving out state business and would go back to those people for contributions,” Cari said.

Cari went on to say he had a number of conversations with Levine, Rezko, and Kelly and that all hinted the administration would reward him richly if he would get involved in the Blagojevich fund-raising machine. Cari was a leader at a Chicago law firm at the time and was a partner in the insurance investor Healthpoint, so he had ways to be rewarded.

“Mr. Levine explained to me that the governor, Mr. Kelly, and Mr. Rezko were going to put together a mechanism where they were going to be appointing people to boards and giving out legal work, accounting work, consulting work,” Cari said. “And then they would go back to these people for campaign contributions.”

In one conversation, Rezko made it very clear Cari's firm would get state work or Healthpoint would find itself with a bounty of pension funds to manage. His response?

“No,” Cari said, rather emphatically. It was for personal reasons, he said. His wife had passed away, and he felt like he was in no condition to take on something of that magnitude. Indeed, in 2010, eight years after his wife died, Cari had told Niewoehner he still was on medication for depression.

His answer to Rezko wasn't accepted, apparently, Cari said, as the offers just kept coming. Cari agreed to meet once again, this time with Chris Kelly, who had roughly the same pitch. If Cari would raise money for them
on a national scale, there would be plenty of cash thrown his way in Illinois. And there was a flip side of the message, he recalled. Say no, and it was clear Healthpoint would never get a fair hearing in the state.

“It was startling to me,” Cari said, still looking fairly wide-eyed on the witness stand. “I went back to my law office.”

Still, it wasn't startling enough to get Cari to sprint away from Levine. Believing he could keep some good will for Healthpoint and knowing it was important to his partner McCall because of who was leading the firm, Cari worked to try to link JER to TRS resources. Niewoehner played for Cari the tape of him talking to a nervous Levine about convincing JER to pay a fee to someone Rezko had selected. One of the calls was from the spring of 2004, when Levine threatened to “undo things” for JER if the contract hiring the bogus finder wasn't signed. There was $80 million in TRS funds at stake if it didn't get done. The jury listened to the call as Levine said it was exactly the kind of thing that upsets the “political powers that be.”

When Cari was cross-examined, he was asked about his party affiliation and how he had moved from supporting Jim Ryan to Blagojevich. He was very much a Democrat, Cari said, and had only supported Ryan for personal reasons related to a friendship Ryan had with Cari's wife over their health. Levine was Ryan's finance chairman, so Cari had gotten to know him then, and the relationship continued after Cari's partner, McCall, reached out to Levine to connect friends he had at JER to TRS funds. Once the JER extortion got going, Cari was asked, wasn't it Levine who was pushing Cari to get the firm to sign for the mystery consultant, not Blagojevich?

Sure, Cari said, agreeing that he did what he could to keep Levine pleased with him. But it wasn't just so Healthpoint could continue to get Illinois funds.

“It was very clear to me based on conversations I had with Rezko, Kelly, and the governor that if you don't play ball their way, there would be repercussions,” Cari said, telling the jury his law firm was on his mind. “We had a lot of clients before the state.”

With Cari finished, prosecutors next called to the stand Jill Hayden, who was director of boards and commissions under Blagojevich. She wouldn't be on the stand for long, but as she had at Rezko's trial in 2008, Hayden testified that among everyone making recommendations to fill state posts after Blagojevich was elected, Rezko and Kelly had the most success. After he had submitted a name for “consideration,” Rezko would often call her to check on the status of key people he was placing on boards, Hayden said. Once
he sort of laughed at her when he checked on someone and she said she just had to get it approved by Monk, as if that were some kind of obstacle. Prosecutors were most interested in the Illinois Finance Authority, pointing out that by January 2004, Hayden's records showed that either Rezko or Kelly had nominated five of the nine members of the panel—a majority. And Rezko was behind the IFA's candidate for executive director, his associate Ali Ata, who was cruising toward being approved until it was discovered that state statutes required that the governor submit two names for consideration. So to address the formality, state paperwork showed that the name of another man, Michael Horst, also had been recommended as a candidate for the job. But there was just one problem. Horst himself didn't even know he had supposedly been tapped to possibly lead the state organization. He was an accountant who worked in the office building where Chris Kelly sometimes worked, and Kelly had seen him at Christmas parties. Hayden acknowledged it was her job to run the vetting process for candidates for state positions, but she said she didn't review Horst's background.

“He wasn't a serious candidate,” Hayden said, stating the obvious.

The jury wouldn't have to wait long to hear from Ata himself. He was on the stand next, walking up to be sworn in wearing a suit jacket over an open shirt. He told the jury he was fifty-eight and living in the leafy suburb of Lemont.

Ata said he had known Alderman Mell for years, and it was through him that he eventually met Blagojevich. He had been a financial supporter of Mell's, and that bridged into Ata supporting Blagojevich in 2002. He recalled holding a pair of fundraisers and said he had contributed thousands of dollars personally as well. One of those checks was from August 2002, and it was for $25,000. Ata said he remembered the circumstances of when he had given it to the campaign. Rezko had him come to his offices on Elston.

When he arrived, he found Rezko with the governor, Lon Monk, Chris Kelly, and state legislator Jay Hoffman. He recalled being led into the conference room.

“Mr. Rezko indicated that I continued to be a team player,” Ata testified. “And I had expressed interest in joining the administration.”

And with that, Rezko took his check for $25,000 and put it on the table in front of Blagojevich. Ata had relayed the story at the earlier trial also, and it had left many with the impression that Ata would one day be telling it again at a trial of the governor himself. Now, here he was, with Blagojevich seated nearby taking more notes on a legal pad.

“Mr. Blagojevich thanked me for my support, and he had asked Mr. Rezko whether we had discussed opportunities in the new administration,” Ata said deliberately in a bit of a nasally monotone. There was very little emotion in his voice at all.

Ata said Rezko had first offered him a spot leading the state's Capital Development Board, but that went away when Hoffman loudly protested that the position traditionally was reserved for someone from downstate.

Later, at the big Blagojevich fundraiser at Navy Pier in 2003, Ata said he had a second conversation with the governor about working in the administration. He said he had a one-on-one talk with Blagojevich in which the governor again thanked him for being such a loyal supporter and brought up that he knew Ata was interested in a state post.