Waging a war on socialism worthy of chronicling in a concept album by Rush.
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Six Degrees of Tony Rezko
9:21 pm, 3/5/08
Six Degrees of Tony Rezko
Another story of Blagojevian incompetence becomes a story of unbridled corruption.
Incredibly, Tony Rezko is all over this.
Another story of Blagojevian incompetence becomes a story of unbridled corruption.
CBS 2 toured the school's new facility, a commercial condo in the Loop the owners bought with the $1 million grant they never should have gotten.The school lost the harassment case, and questions about that pardon apparently caused Blagojevich to walk away.
CBS 2's background check on Loop Lab turned up some interesting facts, beginning with the grant. Mays, who signed the papers, checked that school was "not delinquent in its payment of moneys owned to any federal, state or local unit of government".
The grant was dated November 27, 2006. Three days later, on November 30, 2006, the IRS charged the school with failing to pay $29,000 in back taxes.
The school also has nine civil cases against it totally more than $67,000. On top of that, in 2004, a teacher at the school was accused of sexual harassment, and a year before, in 2003, the director, Dr. Chandra Gill, had a felony record for hitting a police officer.
Coincidently, in January 2007, shortly after the school had been approved for the $1 million grant, Gill was pardoned by the governor.
Blagojevich again defended the "mistake" that sent the money to the school, which used the grant to buy a condo space in the Loop in May but has not yet reopened. But the governor left the unrelated news conference when he was asked about the Tribune's disclosure Wednesday about the pardon for Gill.Oops.
William Quinlan, general counsel to the governor, stepped forward to tell reporters that the January 2007 pardon for Gill "had absolutely nothing to do" with the Loop Lab School. He said Blagojevich pardoned Gill based on a unanimous recommendation from the Illinois Prisoner Review Board.
"I can say, officially, that it had absolutely nothing to do with the Loop Lab School," Quinlan said. "The first we found out about it was just recently."
But in her August 2006 petition for clemency, Gill said she was a volunteer at the school but could not assume a full-time administrative position held open for her at the school unless her felony record was expunged.
Incredibly, Tony Rezko is all over this.
The head of the state grant-giving agency previously worked for Rezko, and the owner of the building where the school is moving was a Rezko business associate.That man, as was established yesterday, was also convicted of fraud.
