McHenry County Blog

I thought CBS Channel Two had the best coverage of the Rod Blagojevich verdict reading.

An employee was texting from the courtroom.

This is how CBS Channel Two told viewers the guilty findings on Counts 12, 13 and 14.

Viewers could see in real time what the talking heads saw.

In covering the Health Facilities Planning Board meeting in Joliet, the Northwest Herald had a camera, which I didn’t dip into (a case of too much information for me), and a series of notes from a reporter on the scene.

First, Mercy’s Crystal Lake application went down with only one vote in favor, the paper reported.

Although the web site reported that Centegra’s Huntley hospital application was also rejected, no vote was given. Guess readers will have to wait until tomorrow to find out.

Or one could go to the Daily Herald story and find the vote was the same 8-1.

I probably should have gone out on a limb and predicted that both applications would be rejected.

There were a bunch of new members who knew little of the process. And the staff had recommended rejection of both applications.

I still don’t think there should be a Soviet-style judgment made by state government.  If Centegra and Mercy want to roll the dice on hundreds of millions of dollars of construction, let them.

The free market would decide the winners and losers among the new and older competitors.

In the 1970′s, my colleague Bill Kempiners was the sponsor of the Certificate of Need legislation.

He wasn’t getting enough votes to pass the bill and came over to ask me to change my vote. (There was an opportunity for people to explain their votes as the roll call was taking place, which gave sponsors time to make personal contract.)

Bill and I were pretty much the same age, among the youngest in the Illinois General Assembly. He appealed to our personal relationship and I yielded.

It turns out that it was one of the votes I am least proud of.

The idea behind this legislation was that health care costs would be decreased because too many or too large hospitals would not be built.

The concept that government knows best how to allocate resources went against my free enterprise grain then and it still does.

The process made a lot of money for attorneys connected with former Governor Jim Thompson and increased the cost of hospitals.

When I re-entered the Illinois House in 1993, one of my first bills was to abolish the board.

It failed.

As we know from the Stuart Levine Crystal Lake Mercy Hospital vote fixing, keeping the board in place also led to outright corruption.

Representation of Centegra's Huntley Hospital

So now we have dueling hospital proposals in McHenry County.

Centegra wants to build one on Algonquin Road in Huntley, while Mercy wants to build one near Route 14 on Route 31.

And who will decide the winner?

State public health bureaucrats and their nominally independent board.

Let me give you one absurd argument used before the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, now renamed to protect the guilty.

Lithotripters were introduced while I was manager of the Bureau of Benefits in the Department of Central Management Services during the mid-1980′s. They crack kidney stones.

Hugely expensive, their placement had to receive a Certificate of Need in order to be purchased by a hospital.

In its demonstration of need, one of the Peoria hospitals included Lake County, Illinois, in its service region.

Completely ridiculous, considering such machines were already in Chicago.

Peoria got its lithotripter.

Who will get a new hospital in southern McHenry County?

Beats me, but letting Springfield bureaucrats make the recommendation makes as little sense now than it did when I was convinced to vote for the original legislation.

I favor letting the market decide.

One more comment.

Licensing is almost always put in place to protect those already in the business.

By its very nature licensing limits competition.

A politician can probably be best judged by the depth he will sink to get elected.

I remember Jack Franks once being outraged that someone had put up a sign identifying his religion on Route 31 right before or on election day.  I wonder if he will be surprised at the similar outrage that John O’Neill probably has about the mailing you’ll see at the bottom of this overly long article.

Previously, I shared his first mailing. You remember, the one where he promotes himself as an “Independent,” (but does not say he will vote against House Speaker Mike Madigan, the major problem in Illinois.)  You can find it here.

Franks has sent out two more “positive” pieces and another one has come from a surrogate group that so far has failed to file any identification papers with either the State Board of Elections or the McHenry County Clerk.  This group has sent out a “hit piece” on John O’Neill, the first Republican brave enough to face him down in six years. Stay tuned on Saturday.

I don’t know which of the pieces Franks is willing to identify himself with went out first, so I’ll show you the first one on the scanner:

The address side repeats endorsement excerpts, talks about his latter day opposition to Rod Blagojevich, his meaningless recall amendment and how he is pushing for term limits. (Click to enlarge.)

So, what’s the problem with his claims?

Franks worked closely with Rod Blagojevich after he was elected. The bulk prescription drug proposal that Franks had pushed with great publicity was one area of cooperation.

Here are the contributions that Herb Franks, Jack’s father, made to Friends of Blagojevich:

• 11/30/2001 – $5,000
• 1/13/2002 – $100
• 6/10/2002 – $500
• 6/25/2002 – $5,000
• 10/10/2002 – $2,000.00 In-Kind Contribution

During that time he sent the following memo to the Blago patronage woman seeking “positions” for his friends and family:

Click to enlarge.

If you can find any evidence that Franks opposed Blagojevich before the 2006 election, please let me know.

I have written about the phony Recall Amendment previously. No one is covered but a governor like Rod Blagojevich. If approved, it will be the weakest Recall language in any state. It give political cover to its supporters to be able to say they did something, when in fact they just are spinning the voters’ wheels in mud.  Lots of motion, but none of it forward toward real reform.

Franks says he is for term limits for legislative leaders, an idea I pushed vigorously when I ran for Governor against Rod Blagojevich in 2002.  He has made no effort anyone can see to limit House Speaker Mike Madigan’s reign.

Term limits for himself do not seem to be in the picture.  Franks is running for this seventh term. I have never heard of any term limit advocate favoring legislators serving longer that twelve years.  If Franks wins, he will be starting his 13th year.

The other side of this first mailing looks like this:

The pitch is "Government has been corrupted by too many politicians enriching themselves instead of working for the people. My focus is to end this sorry practice and I will not stop until Illinois has been cleaned up."

As to using one’s office for personal purposes, perhaps Franks can explain the following letters communications with state agencies in support of Mercy Health System’s application to build a hospital in Crystal Lake:

Jack Franks' July 30, 2003, letter on law office stationery to an Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board concerns the Crystal Lake Mercy Hospital application.

Jack Franks' August 11, 2003, letter on law firm station dated Aug. 11, 2003.

August 29, 2003, letter on law firm stationery that Jack Franks sent to the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board on behalf of Mercy's Crystal Lake Hospital appplication.

September 8, 2003, letter from Department of Aging Director Charles D. Johnson recommending approval of Mercy's Crystal Lake Hospital with a copy to Jack Franks at his law office. I wonder why there is an exhibit number on the document.

September 22, 2003, letter concerning Mercy's Crystal Lake Hospital from Public Aid Director Barry Maram. It seems to have been written at Jack Franks' request.

Here's the final letter concerning Jack Franks and Mercy's Crystal Lake application. It does not refer to Jack Franks, the lawyer. it references "Representative Franks."

I would assume that Franks did not do this as a constituent service for Mercy Health Systems.

This article is already way too long, so I’ll look at the third Franks’ mailing tomorrow.

First, the disclaimer.

I ran as the Libertarian Party candidate against Jim Ryan and Rod Blagojevich in 2002. I got so few votes that it did not affect the outcome. Ryan would have lost whether or not I had been in the race as a third party candidate.

After that race, I started writing articles for Illinois Leader. When my name became known as a reporter through the internet, I started getting calls from a man in Cumberland County about how a politically powerful Republican judge, Robert Cochonour, had looted a community foundation. He wanted me to write a story.

I got lots of information from him.

But this was a big story. I couldn’t wrap my arms around it with everything else I was doing.

I told him he really needed folks at a paper like the Chicago Tribune to take it on.

Low and behold, the Tribune did so…in a two-part story. Reporter Michael Higgins wrote the stories.

First there was a front page story on June 19, 2005. You can buy it here.

I remember a second article the next day, but can’t find it in the Tribune archives.

Then, on August 3rd, the crooked judge testified under threat of losing the sweetheart deal that Jim Ryan cut with him right before Ryan left office in 2003..

So, what about that “sweetheart deal?”

Take a look at the press release from Ryan’s office, dated January 3, 2003. The 2002 election was two months before. Ryan’s staff was packing up his office mementos.

January 3, 2003, press release from Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan, headlined, "Former Cumberland County Judge (Robert Cochonour) Pleades Guilty to Theft of Thousands of Dollars in Charitable Funds." There is no mention in the press release that the Republican Paty judge, a former state's attorney, will get to keep pensions for holding both offices.

The release announces that Cochonour “stole” funds from the Jay E. Hayden Foundation. It mentions he was a Circuit Court judge.

It doesn’t mention that the judge got to keep his pension as a former state’s attorney and to get his pension for being a judge.

An August 3, 2005, article by the Tribune’s Higgins says,

“The plea deal is crucial for Cochonour–and unpopular with many in Cumberland County–because it allowed him to keep a judicial pension of $76,650 a year.

“He also gets a pension of nearly $19,000 a year as a former Cumberland County state’s attorney, according to the transcript.”

If Jim Ryan is nominated Tuesday to be the flag carrier for the Republican Party, can you imagine the television commercial based on this plea bargain?

It could be a twofer.

I’m too cheap to buy the article, but my Cumberland County contact insisted there were elements to the fraud that involved Cochonour in his role as a judge. If so, prosecution could have resulted in his losing both of his public pensions, just as George Ryan did when convicted of a felony.

So, the case could be used to attack Ryan’s integrity.

And, then there is the pension angle.

The state is projected to have real problems paying its pension burden and here Ryan is allowing (how would such a commercial describe Ryan?) “a crooked Republican crony” (?) to keep “not one, but two” pensions.

That’s one reason I don’t think Jim Ryan can be elected governor.

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As I was finishing this article, Jim Ryan called.  He sounded really tired.

Cartoon used in 2002 to capture the refusal of Jim Ryan and Rod Blagojevich to debate Cal Skinner. The two power party candidates conspired to avoid the Illinois League of Women Voters' debate, one which Skinner qualified for by polling over 5% in the Daily Southtown's over 1,000-person survey.

He was no more willing to talk to me today than he and Blagojevich were to debate me in 2002.

Twice Ryan mentioned “corruption:”

“…our culture of corruption…

“I’ll end corruption in Springfield.”

I’ll give him one point.

A Ryan administration starting in 2011 is bound to be less corrupt that one would have been had it started in 2003 when Ryan’s biggest lifetime contributor Stuart Levine would have been appointed to the same boards (the Downstate Teachers Retirement System and the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board) by Ryan that Blagojevich appointed him to.

You can’t convince me that Levine would not have been trying to cut the same illegal deals under a Ryan Administration that he did under Blagojevich.

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Lots of other political stories here.

Ever wonder what it looks like when an attorney has his license revoked?

Below you see what the State of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court did to Nick Hurtgen, a Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson “wuderkind,” who ventured too far into Illinois politics, got indicted in the Edwards Hospital scandal and agreed to plead guilty.  Most of the people mentioned below will be witnesses in the Federal case against impeached Governor Rod Blagojevich.

The recommendation from Wisconsin’s Office of Lawyer Regulation (OLR) pretty well summarizes the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board scandal.  It does not mention the Mercy Health Systems effort to place a hospital in Crystal Lake, but most of the players, sans Hurtgen, were the same as those involved in the Edwards Hospital shake-down described below.

No.  2009AP941-D

STATE OF WISCONSIN:
IN SUPREME COURT

In the Matter of Disciplinary Proceedings Against P. Nicholas Hurtgen, Attorney at Law:

Office of Lawyer Regulation, Complainant,
v.
P. Nicholas Hurtgen, Respondent.

FILED SEP 9, 2009

David R. Schanker
Clerk of Supreme Court

ATTORNEY disciplinary proceeding.   Attorney’s license revoked.

¶1   PER CURIAM.   Attorney P. Nicholas Hurtgen has filed a petition for consensual license revocation pursuant to SCR 22.19.[1]   He states he cannot successfully defend against pending charges of professional misconduct relating to his conviction, entered following a guilty plea, to one count of aiding and abetting wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346, and 2 in connection with a long-running federal investigation of corruption in the administration of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich.

¶2   Attorney Hurtgen was admitted to practice law in Wisconsin in 1992.  He resides in Illinois and is presently the subject of an OLR investigation into these matters.

¶3   The facts from the indictment are complicated and will be only briefly summarized by this court.  Attorney Hurtgen was a senior managing director in the Chicago office of Bear Stearns & Co. (“Bear Stearns”), an investment bank that did business with Edward Hospital.  In December 2007 Attorney Hurtgen was indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on three counts of mail fraud, three counts of wire fraud and one count of extortion in connection with a “pay to play” scheme involving medical facility construction projects in Illinois.  Two other individuals, Stuart Levine, a member of the Illinois Planning Board, and Jacob Kiferbaum, owner and operator of Kiferbaum Construction, were also indicted in connection with the same scheme.  The indictment indicates that Attorney Hurtgen sought to arrange the financing of a proposed Plainfield hospital and medical center for Edward Hospital.

¶4   The indictment alleges that between early 2001 through at least June 2004, the three men conspired to defraud Chicago Medical School, the Planning Board, and the State of Illinois, among others, in connection with four construction projects.

¶5   According to the indictment, Levine, Kiferbaum, and Attorney Hurtgen agreed they would use Levine’s position on the Planning Board to try to force Edward Hospital to hire Kiferbaum’s company to build the proposed $90 million hospital and a $23 million medical office building in Plainfield.  The plan was to tell Edward Hospital representatives that the Planning Board would not approve the projects unless they hired Kiferbaum to build the projects.  Attorney Hurtgen assisted in the scheme because he wanted his employer, Bear Stearns, to receive the financing work for the new Edward Hospital.

¶6   According to the indictment, Attorney Hurtgen agreed to introduce Kiferbaum to the CEO of Edward Hospital.  Kiferbaum understood that Levine would direct the CEO to provide him with a kickback.  According to the indictment, in mid-December 2003, Attorney Hurtgen called Edward Hospital’s CEO and said if the hospital wanted to have certain permits approved, it should postpone its application before the Planning Board on December 17, 2003, to allow time to hire Kiferbaum.  Otherwise, the permit would be denied.  On December 23, 2003, Attorney Hurtgen and Kiferbaum met with Edward Hospital’s CEO to attempt to force the hiring of Kiferbaum’s company.

¶7   On January 8, 2004, Attorney Hurtgen met again with the CEO as well as with Edward Hospital’s project administrator.  When this meeting occurred, the defendants were unaware that the hospital officials were cooperating with the FBI.  The indictment alleged that in explaining his role in persuading Edward Hospital officials to hire Kiferbaum’s company, Attorney Hurtgen said that Bear Stearns would finance the hospital if it was approved.  During the January meeting, the hospital’s CEO requested proof that the threats and promises were real.  Attorney Hurtgen said he might be able to arrange a situation in which Levine would “inadvertently” bump into the CEO and Attorney Hurtgen.  After further discussions, Levine and Attorney Hurtgen went to a restaurant in Deerfield, Illinois, on April 18, 2004, to prove to the CEO that Levine, Attorney Hurtgen, and Kiferbaum were working together and that their threats and promises were real.  Levine and Attorney Hurtgen walked over to the table where Kiferbaum and the CEO were sitting and spoke with them about hiring Kiferbaum.  Attorney Hurtgen later said he told the CEO that it was “all about money” for campaign contributions.

¶8   As of the April 21, 2004, Planning Board meeting, Edward Hospital had not hired Kiferbaum.  Levine voted against the project and the Plainfield hospital application was denied.

¶9   Attorney Hurtgen eventually reached a plea agreement whereby he promised to cooperate with the investigation in return for a recommendation of a lighter sentence.  He entered a guilty plea on February 25, 2009.

¶10  Attorney Hurtgen is a Wisconsin-licensed attorney who engaged in felonious behavior by participating in a pay-to-play scheme.  Admittedly, Attorney Hurtgen was not acting as an attorney when he engaged in this scheme, but his participation in this scheme reflects serious misconduct that violates the public trust.   The OLR recommends revocation as the appropriate sanction, and Attorney Hurtgen does not oppose this recommendation.  He acknowledges he cannot successfully defend against the allegations of the pending disciplinary proceeding.  He states that he is freely, voluntarily, and knowingly filing the petition for consensual license revocation.  He notes that he is represented by counsel, and states that he knows he is giving up his right to contest the allegations of misconduct.

¶11  Therefore, we accept Attorney Hurtgen’s petition for consensual license revocation, and we revoke Attorney Hurtgen’s license to practice law in Wisconsin.

¶12  IT IS ORDERED that the license of P. Nicholas Hurtgen to practice law in Wisconsin is revoked, effective the date of this order.

¶13  IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that, to the extent he has not already done so, P. Nicholas Hurtgen shall comply with the provisions of SCR 22.26 concerning the duties of an attorney whose license to practice law has been revoked.

¶14  DAVID T. PROSSER, J., did not participate.

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The photo shows Rod Blagojevich being questioned by Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren.  An attorney, Van Susteren suggested Blagojevich release all of the FBI wire taps of his conversations that he says he wants everyone to hear.  So far, Blagojevich has not done so.

One of former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson’s “Wunderkinds” has plead guilty to federal charges concerning the Edwards Hospital Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board scandal.

Nicholas Hurtgen, who at the time was Managing Director of the Chicago office of Bear Stearns, also has a connection to ex-Crystal Laker and ex-felon Don Udstuen, who was an Illinois and McHenry County power broker.

When Wisconsin Energy was seeking an Illinois lobbyist in 1999, Hurtgen asked Don Udstuen’s advice. The government says that Udstuen conferred with Governor George Ryan and Ryan suggested Ryan’s good friend, lobbyist and former Republican State Senator Art Swanson. Swanson was hired.

Hurtgen was identified in a whistle-blowing suit filed by Naperville’s Edward Hospital. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the Edwards’ lawsuit said the scheme began in 2001 when Udstuen of Crystal Lake introduced Hurtgen to Edward Hospital officials.

Convicted fixer Stuart Levine was the manipulator on the hospital certificate need licensing board. He was appointed the the board by both Governors George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich.

Although the Hurtgen plea agreement does not mention Crystal Lake’s Mercy Hospital bid, financing by Bear Stearns figured into the deal to have Mercy hire Kiferbaum Construction, which was supposed to give Levine a kickback. Kiferbaum flipped, as did another Levine associate John Glennon.

Udstuen is the former head of the Illinois State Medical Society medical malpractice company, a super-lobbyist and a close adviser to former GOP Governor George Ryan. Facing a 22-count federal indictment alleging a host of corrupt activities while in public office, Udstuen plead guilty to federal corruption charges involving his work with the Ryan administration and cooperated with prosecutors on the trial, which led to Ryan’s conviction of political corruption.

Hurtgen was the Bear Stearns managing director in Chicago when then-Republican National Committeeman Bob Kjellander received $809,133.96 for doing no work (really; that’s what the documents filed by Bear Stearns Vincent A. Mazzaro, Managing Director/Principal & Controller of the Municipal Division, say) prior to the bond house selection for newly-sworn in Governor Rod Blagojevich’s $10 billion 1973 pension bond issuance.

The Chicago Sun-Times found that Hurtgen’s wife Kim was a 3.5% owner of Knight Infrastructure. An article I wrote for Illinois Leader was the first to report that Knight provided $29,726 in free plane rides for Blagojevich during 2002—before and after the fall election.

Knight got a lucrative contract to design and be construction manager for the $30 million World Shooting Complex in Sparta and is also earning $4.7 million in an oversight role in the remodeling of tollway oases.

Let’s assume everything is on the square at the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.

OK. Forget about the fixing of the new hospital that Wisconsin’s Mercy Health Care System wanted to build in Crystal Lake to compete with local biggie Centegra Health Care System’s dominant hospitals in McHenry County.

Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed a new board, didn’t he?

Problem solved, right?

No reason to be suspicious when Naperville’s Edward Hospital gets turned down for the third time, right?

“Edward contends that the hospital is necessary because of the area’s rapid growth and because one-third of the patients at its crowded Naperville campus come from the Plainfield area,”

Chicago Tribune reporter James Kimberly reports.

Edward Hospital admitted projecting that Will County would grow.

Naughty. Naughty.

“…acting health facilities board Chairman Susana Lopatka said population projections are not certain to materialize and even if they did, there would be insufficient demand to support a new hospital by 2015.”

Naturally, nearby hospitals objected.

Just as they did in McHenry County.

Irrelevant, of course, is that Edward Hospital CEO Pam Meyer Davis blew the whistle on Stuart Levine’s little shakedown game.

Oh, yes.

“…the board and its staff became contentious at times.”

I’ll bet.

The only cure for this regulatory agency is abolition, something I tried, but failed to accomplish in 1993.

No chance of that now.

We are in the age of “government knows best” again.

Maybe we’ll end up with another warehouse full of basketballs that won’t get given to Chicago kids, just like I was told two days ago that we had in Chicago during Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

Let’s assume everything is on the square at the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.

OK. Forget about the fixing of the new hospital that Wisconsin’s Mercy Health Care System wanted to build in Crystal Lake to compete with local biggie Centegra Health Care System’s dominant hospitals in McHenry County.

Governor Rod Blagojevich appointed a new board, didn’t he?

Problem solved, right?

No reason to be suspicious when Naperville’s Edward Hospital gets turned down for the third time, right?

“Edward contends that the hospital is necessary because of the area’s rapid growth and because one-third of the patients at its crowded Naperville campus come from the Plainfield area,”

Chicago Tribune reporter James Kimberly reports.

Edward Hospital admitted projecting that Will County would grow.

Naughty. Naughty.

“…acting health facilities board Chairman Susana Lopatka said population projections are not certain to materialize and even if they did, there would be insufficient demand to support a new hospital by 2015.”

Naturally, nearby hospitals objected.

Just as they did in McHenry County.

Irrelevant, of course, is that Edward Hospital CEO Pam Meyer Davis blew the whistle on Stuart Levine’s little shakedown game.

Oh, yes.

“…the board and its staff became contentious at times.”

I’ll bet.

The only cure for this regulatory agency is abolition, something I tried, but failed to accomplish in 1993.

No chance of that now.

We are in the age of “government knows best” again.

Maybe we’ll end up with another warehouse full of basketballs that won’t get given to Chicago kids, just like I was told two days ago that we had in Chicago during Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

Woodstock lawyer-lobbyist Jeff Ladd finished his testimony on Monday and didn’t say enough new to make the nightly TV news.

He ended Thursday’s time on the witness by admitting he was a “Lobbyist” with a “capital ‘L’” and that he had hired Chicago Democratic ward committeeman Ed Kelly to be “the small ‘L,’” as the Chicago Tribune’s Rezko Blog put it Friday.

Monday the same Tribune source told about Ladd’s meeting defendant Tony Rezko for an October 2003 breakfast at which Rezko said virtually nothing.

Ladd was trying to figure out what Rezko’s role was in the Mercy Hospital licensing, as well with other clients before the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.

Rezko’s silence led to the hiring of Chicago Democrat Kelly for $80,000.

Ladd’s characterization of the meeting:

“It was significant to me because of what did not get said. I would have thought I would have heard Mr. Rezko say to me, ‘I don’t get involved in these matters, why are you talking to me?’ … Or he might have asked me some questions about these applications. The fact that he said neither indicated to me he was a blank slate and I had to go further [and hire Ed Kelly],”

the Tribune blog reported.

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The picture, again, is of Jeff Ladd and Ken Koehler at a Republican Party event. It comes from the McHenry County Republican Central Committee web site.

Woodstock lawyer-lobbyist Jeff Ladd finished his testimony on Monday and didn’t say enough new to make the nightly TV news.

He ended Thursday’s time on the witness by admitting he was a “Lobbyist” with a “capital ‘L’” and that he had hired Chicago Democratic ward committeeman Ed Kelly to be “the small ‘L,’” as the Chicago Tribune’s Rezko Blog put it Friday.

Monday the same Tribune source told about Ladd’s meeting defendant Tony Rezko for an October 2003 breakfast at which Rezko said virtually nothing.

Ladd was trying to figure out what Rezko’s role was in the Mercy Hospital licensing, as well with other clients before the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board.

Rezko’s silence led to the hiring of Chicago Democrat Kelly for $80,000.

Ladd’s characterization of the meeting:

“It was significant to me because of what did not get said. I would have thought I would have heard Mr. Rezko say to me, ‘I don’t get involved in these matters, why are you talking to me?’ … Or he might have asked me some questions about these applications. The fact that he said neither indicated to me he was a blank slate and I had to go further [and hire Ed Kelly],”

the Tribune blog reported.

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The picture, again, is of Jeff Ladd and Ken Koehler at a Republican Party event. It comes from the McHenry County Republican Central Committee web site.