Golden (35 page)

Levine and Weinstein were still talking about getting their own investment management company put together, with their interest in it hidden, to take in TRS money. Levine told his friend he saw no obstacles to getting $500 million in TRS business. Rosenberg might have to scrap the business Capri was doing.

“Or do a deal,” Levine said of the corrupt arrangement. “And I'm fine. I would prefer he would not, to tell you the truth, we can take, uh, this money and put it as part of the $500 million. I don't give a shit anymore.”

Rezko was supportive of the plan to create a firm that could take in finder's fees itself, Levine said. That would cut out annoying middlemen like
Pekin and Rosenberg. Levine said he had explained to Rezko how it could work: they could direct TRS money to the investment firms they picked, with those firms being directed to pay a finder's fee to the shadow company that was only there to collect the fees.

“And he said to me, orchestrate the whole thing, Stuart,” Levine told Weinstein on the call. “Just do it. Let me know what I gotta do.”

Weinstein agreed it could potentially be perfect. Rezko and Kelly and those close to them would control both ends of any deal coming before TRS and its massive coffers, with the corrupt Levine as their point man. It would be a looting of state money on an unprecedented scale.

On May 6, Levine spoke to Cari again on the phone. There was trouble with JER and its $80 million allocation from TRS, which was to be voted on at the board's meeting later that month. The agreement for JER to pay a “consultant” chosen by Levine and Rezko had yet to be finalized, and Levine admitted to Cari that he was getting nervous. Somehow the leaders at JER— including principal Debbie Harmon—had gotten the idea that they were fine without paying a finder's fee.

“I hate to undo things,” Levine threatened. “But I, I'll have to do it, uh, real fast, and … I'd hate to have to do that.”

Levine was more than a little irritated that Harmon and others had been told all along that they would need to hire someone he called a “marketing person.” Never mind that was really code for the bogus finder. Now JER magically thought they could get away with not making the payment they had been directed to make? Levine would pull the plug with extreme prejudice if that kept up. No need, Cari answered. They'd get the message. It was just a misunderstanding, and everything would be just fine. Cari could call his friend and Healthpoint partner, McCall, who was former New York state comptroller, who could tell JER and Harmon to communicate the urgent need to pay the finder's fee.

Good, Levine said. People he was dealing with were waiting to hear about results.

“I don't wanna be in the middle of something that doesn't happen after I tell people it's gonna happen,” Levine warned.

“I understand,” Cari answered.

A few minutes later, Cari called again. He had spoken to McCall, who had been exchanging voice mails with Harmon all day. They had been told they needed to work with the “marketing person” they would be given, and Cari told Levine the contract would be as he had laid out earlier, with half of the fee paid at closing and half six months later. Levine knew that Rezko had selected Charles Hannon—Dr. Fortunee Massuda's husband—to act as the collector of the kickback. All of JER's potential roadblocks had been removed, Levine said again. But that could change.

“You know how upset people can get—the political powers that be,” Levine said.

Cari would get several messages to leaders at JER that this was simply how things were done in Illinois and “how the governor handles patronage.” It made no one at JER comfortable to deal with that kind of pressure, and those handling the TRS business for the investment firm found it strange that they received a copy of the proposed contract from a company called Emerald Star International, whose representatives they had never met, and that the company's fax machine apparently was in the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The next day was May 7, and Levine was on the phone with Cellini, his longtime ally. The men were so close and controlled TRS so tightly that the head of the TRS staff referred to Cellini as “the Pope” and Levine as “the Rabbi.” The men had been going back and forth a bit on one of Levine's projects, and Cellini told Levine he had just had an interesting conversation with someone.

As the FBI continued listening in, Cellini said he told the angry movie producer Rosenberg he had checked to find out what the problem was behind the TRS issue and learned people in high places were “flabbergasted” to learn how much state business Capri was bringing in while doing nothing in return. “Doing nothing” of course meant not making any kind of political donation to Rod Blagojevich. Cellini said he told Rosenberg he planned to reach out to Rezko to get a fuller explanation but that Rosenberg had cut him off.

“He said, ‘And let me tell you, I don't want any interfacing with that guy,'” Cellini recalled. “He said, ‘[Rezko] would never be somebody that I would go to. There are two people in this administration that, in my opinion, if
they're not under investigation already they're being monitored every step of the way, and that's Tony Rezko and Chris Kelly.'”

Cellini said he had led Rosenberg to believe that someone else could have reached out about the problem and alerted Rezko and the rest of the machinery under Blagojevich to the fact that Capri was all play and no pay. Rosenberg had said he would find out and get back to Cellini, who had told Rosenberg he had linked up to Rezko and Kelly and been asked to do fund-raising on behalf of the state road builders. Whatever, Rosenberg had answered. He had said in no uncertain terms that if he thought he had to go through Rezko or Kelly to pry the $200 million allocation out of TRS, he was willing to walk away without his money.

By late the next afternoon, Cellini called Levine at his home again, after just speaking to an irate Rosenberg, who said he had learned through an intermediary he did in fact have a problem with Rezko and Kelly. And the more Rosenberg talked about the situation, the angrier he became on the call. He let Cellini know he was going to fight. He was being shaken down, and it was outrageous.

Rosenberg insisted he wouldn't be blackmailed. And if they pressed the matter, he would stand at the corner of State and Madison in the heart of downtown Chicago and shout out what was happening. He had gone on so long, Cellini said, Rosenberg's cell phone had started to cut in and out.

Cellini told Levine he was nervous about the whole situation. Rezko and Kelly were “essentially hammerin' people for contracts.” There was so much going on, eventually someone would probably take a look at it. And who knows where things could lead then?

The message from Rosenberg would be passed to Rezko and Kelly, and Levine even wondered out loud what kind of effect it would have.

“Maybe this conversation becomes, uh, a little bit sobering for them,” Levine said. “Does it have that potential?”

“For twelve minutes,” Cellini answered.

It was May 12 by the time the men had had separate conversations with Rezko and were again going over the scenario involving Rosenberg and how to handle him. Levine had been in a meeting with both Rezko and Kelly, and the personalities of the pair and how they handled this kind of fund-raising had clashed. Rezko was ever the careful, measured analyst.

“He just said uh, solve this with your head, not your heart,” Levine told Cellini of his conversation. “The other guy [Kelly] says, ‘Smack'em over the head.'”

Cellini said Rezko's position seemed to be that Capri would get its $220 million allocation in an attempt to placate the volatile Rosenberg, but there would be no more state business for the firm. With no promises from Capri's leaders that it would take care of the people pulling the strings in Illinois, they would quickly find themselves on the outside looking in.

And then Cellini made a comment that would perk the ears of investigators hoping to weave a case together and push it as high as it might go. Rezko had said something else in their conversation, Cellini told Levine.

“Did he tell you too that the big guy said Rosenberg means nothing to him?” Cellini asked, referring to Blagojevich himself. It told investigators that the governor had been briefed on the Rosenberg situation and apparently had blessed cutting Rosenberg off at the knees.

“Of course, it seems like nobody means anything,” Cellini said with a laugh.

It was an important moment for many on the investigation. It wasn't completely confirmed that the “big guy” was Blagojevich, but it was certainly reasonable to suspect that Cellini meant the governor was aware of what was happening and had passed some kind of word down the food chain about it.

On May 19, just before the TRS board was supposed to meet next and vote on proposals Levine was running, Levine and Cari were on the phone. Levine still hadn't heard for sure whether Debbie Harmon of JER had signed the contract that would send money to Rezko associate Charles Hannon. McCall was getting off a flight just then, Cari explained, and even though it was after five o'clock in New York, the state's former comptroller was going to go to JER's offices in person to make sure it would be taken care of. Apparently that's what it was going to take.

“Well, I look forward to seeing you tomorrow,” Levine said. The next day would be May 20, 2004, but Cari wasn't the only person Levine would be seeing. Answering a knock on his door at 7:00 P
M,
Levine was greeted by FBI agents. One of them was Daniel Cain, who had been with the bureau for nearly twenty years after leaving a job as an accountant at a small firm in
central Illinois. The agents would play some of the recordings they had made so far, showing Levine a photo of himself with other targets in the investigation the month before and throwing some names at him. For Levine, they were all the wrong ones: Jacob Kiferbaum. Nicholas Hurtgen. Tony Rezko.

The wiretaps were discontinued the next day, but not before authorities captured a final call between Levine and Weinstein. The FBI had been by, a shellshocked Levine said, and they were looking for a “big fish.” That was Rezko, Levine told Weinstein, the political patron who had opened up so many doors for him over the past months. Just a couple of weeks later, subpoenas landed at the offices of the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board in Springfield, asking for documents related to the odd Mercy vote Levine had participated in. Levine would resign his post that June before the next hospital board meeting, even with four hospital plans up for a vote, and he would leave TRS, too, in July. He gave no official reason for stepping down.