Rezko calls straw-donor claim reckless
By KENNETH P. VOGEL | 7/2/08 6:20 AM EST
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Antoin “Tony” Rezko
Rezko’s lawyers assert 'there is no evidence whatsoever' that Rezko, an early political patron of Obama’s, reimbursed an associate for a $10,000 contribution to Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaign.
Photo: AP
Lawyers for disgraced Chicago businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko accused the government of “recklessly” whipping up a “media frenzy” by alleging that Rezko used a straw donor to contribute to Barack Obama.
In a filing unsealed this week, Rezko’s lawyers asserted “there is no evidence whatsoever” that Rezko, an early political patron of Obama, reimbursed an associate for a $10,000 contribution to Obama’s 2004 U.S. Senate campaign.
The prosecutors who tried Rezko on a series of corruption charges had alleged that he steered a kickback from a state contract to one-time business partner Joseph Aramanda, then instructed Aramanda to contribute part of it to Obama, because Rezko had already maxed out to the campaign.
“Given the fungible nature of money and the fact that the government will not call Aramanda” as a witness, Rezko’s lawyers wrote in the unsealed document, “the government will have difficulty proving that the donated dollars came from any particular source.”
Additionally, they assert “there is no evidence whatsoever that Rezko reimbursed Aramanda for this contribution, or even that Rezko had any role in or awareness of Aramanda’s donation. Aramanda and Rezko were certainly not alone in supporting Obama’s campaign, and the mere fact that both did so should not support an inference that Aramanda’s contribution was made on behalf of Rezko.”
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The document was originally filed in January to ask the judge to block three witnesses’ statements from the trial, which concluded last month when a jury convicted Rezko of 16 corruption-related counts including fraud and money laundering.
In their filing, Rezko’s lawyers pointed out that “in the media frenzy that followed” the government’s straw-donor claim, media reports revealed that Aramanda’s son had an internship in Obama’s Senate office in Washington during the summer of 2005.
So, Rezko’s lawyers asserted, “Aramanda has ample independent reason to support Obama’s campaign.”
Still, Obama donated to charity Aramanda’s $10,000 contribution, as well as another $149,000 in contributions his campaign said "could be reasonably credited to Mr. Rezko's political support."
Obama was not implicated in any wrongdoing in the Rezko case, but his name was mentioned sporadically during the two-month trial.
Last week, the judge unsealed a document showing prosecutors had considered calling witnesses to link Rezko to Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
The newly released document blasting the straw-donor allegation is the second filing unsealed since Rezko’s conviction in which he or his team alleged prosecutors unfairly steered the trial toward Obama.
Last month, the judge released a letter Rezko wrote from jail during the trial in which he accused prosecutors of improperly pressuring him to implicate Obama, as well as Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
“They are pressuring me to tell them the ‘wrong’ things that I supposedly know about Gov. Blagojevich and Sen. Obama,” Rezko wrote in the letter. “I have never been party to any wrongdoing that involved the governor or the senator. I will never fabricate lies about anyone else for selfish purposes. I will take what comes my way, but I will never hurt innocent people.”
After that letter became public, Obama’s campaign released a statement stressing that Obama hasn’t been accused of “any improper action or conduct involving Tony Rezko” and reiterating that he hasn’t been contacted for an interview or for any information about Rezko. “Nothing in this letter indicates anything to the contrary.”
But Republicans have seized on the relationship between the two, which includes a real estate deal that enlarged the Obama’s Chicago homestead, to question Obama’s judgment.
