Golden (65 page)

“Whatever they asked,” Monk said.

It was Kelly who had first brought up the topic of making money illegally through state business, Monk recalled. Even before the election in 2002, Kelly had said something to him when they were alone in the parking
garage of the building that housed Blagojevich's campaign office, he said, evoking images of meetings with Deep Throat in
All the President's Men.
The Republicans had done it for years, Kelly told him, and in fact men like Cellini were Republicans in name only. It wouldn't be hard to direct business to their friends and themselves and bring in cash.

“This was something that we were going to be able to do now that we were close to Rod and he was going to be governor,” Monk recalled Kelly telling him. “I was intrigued by the topic and wanted to make money.”

The following summer, after Blagojevich was in office, things became a bit more organized, Monk said. He told Niewoehner he remembered a meeting at the Rezmar offices where he, Rezko, Kelly, and Blagojevich met to discuss ways they themselves could profit. They sat around a long conference table. and Rezko sketched out eight or nine proposals on an easel, or maybe a blackboard, Monk said, and put an estimated dollar amount by each. In all, there were hundreds of thousands of dollars in corruption plans. And there was a definite sense that what they were talking about was to be top secret, for obvious reasons. The four didn't even use their names, he said, referring to one another as “1, 2, 3, and 4.” Kelly would later get into the habit of just showing four fingers when referring to how the group could profit from one scheme or another, Monk said. First on Rezko's list was a plan to set up or buy an insurance company that could get state contracts. Levine certainly had proven there was money in that. But the four wouldn't have to bribe anyone. Blagojevich had allowed Rezko and Kelly to name loyalists to key state posts. When some of the plans worked, Rezko would hold the money in a secret account until Blagojevich left office.

Blagojevich had been moving toward selling the $10 billion in pension obligation bonds to address budget problems and needed an investment firm to head the deal up. This was when Rezko and Kelly had become very interested in having Bear Stearns sell the first chunk, despite a number of big firms being on the list. And they got even more excited when just before the first sale, state budget staff floated the idea of selling all at once because interest rates were so favorable, Monk said. Kelly, with no experience, advised Blagojevich on the massive bond deal, Monk recalled, and he remembered thinking the situation was probably going to help with fund-raising somehow or that “we were gonna make money.” He even recalled the meeting at the Thompson Center before Blagojevich pulled the trigger on selling all the bonds at once. Monk testified he saw Rezko and Kelly huddled together in the back of Blagojevich's office and that Kelly at one point pulled
the governor aside. Shortly thereafter, Blagojevich told his staff to do the big sale and abandon the idea of a group of smaller outlays.

In a later conversation, Monk said Kelly bragged about having persuaded Blagojevich to go ahead. But it was Rezko who really filled him in later, Monk said.

“As a result of Bear Stearns being able to sell all $10 billion [in bonds], Bob Kjellander, who was a lobbyist for Bear Stearns, had given Tony, in an effort for getting this done, $500,000” from the total he received, Monk told the jury. “And that Tony was putting that in a separate account for the four of us.”

Kjellander would always deny any wrongdoing. He classified the money he gave to Rezko as a loan.

Rezko would in fact hold the cash, Monk said, though he confessed to never getting any of it directly or knowing where it went. There was one hiccup when Kelly heard that Rezko had taken out $100,000 to help with a business situation. Monk said Kelly had been angered because he was afraid the withdrawal of such a large sum could somehow alert authorities to the presence of the illicit account, and he had demanded Rezko put it back.

And with that, Monk's first day on the witness stand came to a close. At the defense table, Blagojevich had continued to watch with disgust. He scribbled notes and looked into the gallery at Patti, who sometimes rubbed her neck and looked around the courtroom herself in amazement. It was like they had never actually considered what Monk would say, and they were genuinely surprised by how bad it was. Blagojevich's reactions were so pronounced, prosecutors later asked Judge Zagel to tell him to cut it out because he was distracting the jury.

The next morning, Blagojevich arrived and was his usual chipper self, shaking hands and saying hello to anyone who stopped to look at him for longer than two seconds. One person who shouted support from a line of spectators getting ready to enter the courtroom was Derrick Mosley, a former community activist who was sent to prison for trying to extort $20,000 from gospel singer DeLeon Richards and her husband, baseball player Gary Sheffield.

“Superstar!” Mosley then shouted at Sam Adam Jr. “We want some cross-examination today!”

But that would have to wait. Monk wasn't quite through answering questions from Niewoehner, who started again by asking about Rezko and Monk and their interest in getting appointments pushed through for their
own benefit. Monk said they were more interested in the more important positions that had real sway over contracts and state business and cared much less about many of the less important spots in the administration. Niewoehner put an image of a memo up on an overhead screen for the jury to see. It was a list of candidates that Rezko had given to the administration for “consideration.” Doctors Malek and Massuda were there, two of the people who had helped Levine carry off the odd vote at the IHFPB, and so was Daniel Mahru, Rezko's business partner.

“A lot of them were donors, yeah,” Monk acknowledged for the jury, while Blagojevich did his best to keep a poker face at the defense table.

Blagojevich had had a large fund-raising event the summer after he was elected, in 2003, and there was a lot of planning and discussion about bringing in money ahead of it, Monk remembered. There was direct talk about linking fund-raising to state positions. Rezko was very opinionated about how it should work when someone wanted a spot.

“At a minimum, some of these people should have been donating $25,000,” Monk recalled him saying. One who would show up at the fundraiser was Rezko business associate Ali Ata, who would hand a check directly to Blagojevich and later be named head of the Illinois Finance Authority. He had testified about it at Rezko's trial and was expected to do the same at Blagojevich's. Niewoehner showed Monk the board minutes from the January 2004 IFA board meeting where Ata had been hired over a sham candidate. Rezko had quickly sought a loan with the help of the IFA under Ata to help support his pizza business, which Monk said caused a little bit of worry in the administration because of how it looked. Ata eventually had signed a document on IFA letterhead that made it look like an investor was getting assistance from the IFA, which helped Rezko's business bring in $10 million from General Electric Capital Corporation. In reality, Rezko had set up a straw purchaser, and he, Ata, and Rezko associate Al Chaib had been charged separately with that fraud.

Monk also remembered Levine's reappointment to TRS and the hospital board. Governor George Ryan had appointed him, but Levine had no trouble making an impression on Rezko and Kelly and sticking around with Blagojevich. Monk told Niewoehner he remembered talking to Kelly after Kelly had come back from a meeting at Rezko's offices with Levine.

“[Kelly] said [Levine] knew how to get things done at TRS, in terms of influencing board members and having things voted on that he was in favor of,” Monk said. “He referred to him as an operator.”

Kelly realized Levine could steer approvals to certain companies that were willing to give something back. Levine had filled Rezko in on it as a way to make money.

“He was kind of enthusiastic about it and said this is something he or we should be doing, the four of us,” Monk said, meaning 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Monk and Rezko had a decent relationship of their own, one that included Rezko occasionally slipping Monk $10,000 in overnight mail envelopes. Monk said it had happened up to nine times, the first coming when Monk had asked Rezko about buying a luxury car and the weathy real estate developer turned political godfather had offered to pay for it. There was another envelope just before Monk got married in September 2004, and others just because. Monk used the extra cash for things like gas and food and clothes, too nervous to deposit the funds into a bank account, though he then worried that someone investigating him would wonder why he had suddenly stopped using ATMs. Rezko also had paid for the basement to be refinished at Monk's Park Ridge home, sending contractors there and charging him nothing.

Payments to Monk were payments to Monk, but this was Blagojevich's trial. Monk also told what he knew about Rezko hiring Patti Blagojevich to a $12,000-a-month job, for which prosecutors said she did nothing. Monk recalled everyone deciding it was better for her to go on a retainer rather than being paid on commission, which would require actual properties to be sold for her to be paid. Showing up at the office also was an issue, because Patti was a busy mother to two young girls. Still, the Blagojevich lawyers advised, it was a good idea for her to at least appear at Rezko's offices every now and again.

Niewoehner went back to the “1, 2, 3, 4” code. It had been Kelly's idea, but the governor had used it too, Monk said. Once in 2007 or even 2008, Monk recalled, in the campaign office, Blagojevich had put his hand up in front of him.

“If you're ever asked about this,” Monk said, quoting Blagojevich and holding up one, two, three, and then four fingers, “don't say anything.”

And then Blagojevich had made a slashing motion across his throat. Nearby, the ex-governor was shaking his head again.

Monk said Blagojevich was regularly getting shut out in his last-ditch bids to bring in cash before the legislation took effect January 1, 2009. One attempt
focused on the head of a roadbuilder's organization, Jerry Krozel, and Blagojevich's planned announcement of state funds for tollway construction.

Monk said in the fall of 2008, the then-governor hoped the tollway plan would “incentivize” Krozel to make a large contribution. Blagojevich planned to announce a $1.8 billion tollway program and held out a possible $5 billion infusion as a carrot with the thought it would make Krozel and his organization very happy, Monk said.

“We need to get $500,000 from him,” Monk recalled Blagojevich saying. Monk said he checked in with Krozel a few times about a possible donation but didn't come out and ask for that much because he “didn't feel like it” and didn't think it was reasonable with the economy in the tank.

Blagojevich said he was willing to announce the smaller outlay for the tollway, which he eventually did, but wanted to wait and see what kind of money came in from concrete and roadbuilding groups before making the $5 billion plan public. If he wasn't satisfied with the fund-raising result, “fuck ‘em,” Monk recalled Blagojevich saying.

Monk also described increasing paranoia surrounding Blagojevich's closest circle as the federal investigation closed in. Fundraiser Christopher Kelly had started speaking in code to Monk, Rezko, and Blagojevich, Monk remembered. The use of the numbers was common, including by Blagojevich.

Before Monk left the stand, Niewoehner asked about the December 3, 2008, conversation that had been recorded by bugs in the Friends of Blagojevich offices. Prosecutors had played for the jury the tape on which Blagojevich and Monk appeared to be rehearsing what Monk would say to John Johnston, the owner of a pair of horse tracks that Blagojevich allegedly shook down.

Monk said meetings at the office started with a general fund-raising discussion among himself, Blagojevich, and Robert in the conference room, but the governor then took him aside into his private office to talk to him about his “issue.” That issue was Johnston, and Blagojevich allegedly pushing the track owner for a donation by the end of the year.