Mobster Joey "the Clown" Lombardo, one of the five Outfit associates convicted in the landmark Family Secrets trial that riveted Chicago for weeks with its lurid testimony about 18 decades-old gangland slayings, was sentenced to life in prison this afternoon.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel levied the sentenc after the aging mob boss addressed the court in a gravelly voice and denied having anything to do with the Seifert murder.
The judge said that unlike co-defendants in case, Lombardo showed some balance in judgment and some ability to charm people. But in the end, defendants must be judged by their actions, "not about our wit and our smiles," Zagel said. "The worst things you have done are terrible, and I see no regret in you," the judge told Lombardo in handing down the life sentence.
Lombardo, the wisecracking elder statesman of the mob, and four other defendants were found guilty in 2007 of a racketeering conspiracy that stretched back to the 1960s and included extorting "street taxes," collecting high-interest "juice" loans, running illegal gambling operations and using violence and murder to protect the mob's interests.
He also was found guilty of the 1974 murder of federal witness Daniel Seifert and of obstructing justice by fleeing from authorities after his indictment. He faced a maximum sentence of life in prison.
Lombardo was sent to federal prison in the 1980s for conspiring with International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Roy Lee Williams and union pension fund manager Allen Dorfman to bribe Sen. Howard Cannon (D-Nev.) to help defeat a trucking deregulation bill. Cannon was never charged with any wrongdoing and the bill became law with his support.
When Lombardo got out, he resumed life as the boss of the mob's Grand Avenue street crew, prosecutors said. He denied it. but his attorney, Rick Halprin, told the trial he ran "the oldest and most reliable floating craps game on Grand Avenue."
When the Family Secrets indictment was unsealed, Lombardo went on the lam for nine months. He ultimately was brought before U.S. District Judge James Zagel.
Two of Lombardo's co-defendants were sentenced last week. Paul "the Indian" Schiro got 20 years for the racketeering conviction, and Frank Calabrese Sr. got life for racketeering and for seven murders.
James Marcello, once called Chicago's mob boss by authorities, is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday.
Monday, February 02, 2009
Memo to Mobsters: Don't "Adopt" Anyone - He May Turn Out to be a Rat
Memo to mobsters: Don't "adopt" anyone - he may turn out to be a rat.
John A. (Junior) Gotti learned that the hard way with "adopted" son Lewis Kasman, who taped Gotti family meetings for the feds.
Reputed killer Charles Carneglia is about to get a taste of the same medicine with "adopted" kid brother Kevin McMahon.
Both mob turncoats are to testify in Carneglia's ongoing murder trial in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Kasman, a former Long Island garment exec who wormed his way into Gotti's inner circle and called himself the adopted son of the late Gambino crime boss, wasn't close to Carneglia.
McMahon was as close as you can get without being a relative. "When Kevin walks into that courtroom I would expect Charles will want to jump over the table and strangle him," a law enforcement official said.
McMahon was not only a member of Carneglia's crime crew, he was like a member of the Carneglia family.
In 1980, McMahon was a 12-year-old Irish kid from Howard Beach "at the beginning of his long and extraordinarily close relationship" with Charles Carneglia and his brother John, court papers show. McMahon is 20 years younger than Charles, 62, and John, 64.
On a fateful day in March, McMahon lent his minibike to mob scion Frank Gotti who was accidentally hit and killed by neighbor John Favara as he drove home from work. Favara was slain on Gotti's orders and, prosecutors say, Charles Carneglia dissolved his body in a barrel of acid.
Before the incident, McMahon had been "informally adopted" by John and Charles Carneglia. Charles Carneglia promised to protect the lad from retaliation for his role in Frankie's death.
McMahon was treated as a member of the Carneglia family, living with them for long stretches, attending family dinners and going on Carneglia family vacations, Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Burlingame said.
Former capo Michael DiLeonardo has testified that McMahon was a "goofy kid" who taunted FBI agents, running up to them and grabbing his crotch.
McMahon had jobs with Local 638 steamfitters union and Local 52 motion pictures mechanics union, but those paid only $40,000 a year, chump change for a wanna-be Gambino associate with an ailing wife and two kids.
Prosecutors say he and Carneglia took part in extortions, art fraud and robberies, including the stickup of an armored car at Kennedy Airport in 1990 in which guard Jose Rivera Delgado was shot to death. McMahon dropped a baseball cap at the scene. DNA tests linked him to a strand of hair in the hat.
Shortly after he was arrested in 2005 on an indictment charging him with racketeering for the Gambinos in Tampa, McMahon sent a "thank you" letter to Brooklyn Magistrate Robert Levy for releasing him on bail.
"As I was leaving the courtroom you said to me, 'Don't let me down.' I assure you I have not," he wrote. "As soon as I'm acquitted I'll write you again."
McMahon turned on his adoptive mob family after he was convicted and faced 20 years behind bars. He is cooperating in hopes of winning a lesser prison term.
Thanks to John Marzulli
John A. (Junior) Gotti learned that the hard way with "adopted" son Lewis Kasman, who taped Gotti family meetings for the feds.
Reputed killer Charles Carneglia is about to get a taste of the same medicine with "adopted" kid brother Kevin McMahon.
Both mob turncoats are to testify in Carneglia's ongoing murder trial in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Kasman, a former Long Island garment exec who wormed his way into Gotti's inner circle and called himself the adopted son of the late Gambino crime boss, wasn't close to Carneglia.
McMahon was as close as you can get without being a relative. "When Kevin walks into that courtroom I would expect Charles will want to jump over the table and strangle him," a law enforcement official said.
McMahon was not only a member of Carneglia's crime crew, he was like a member of the Carneglia family.
In 1980, McMahon was a 12-year-old Irish kid from Howard Beach "at the beginning of his long and extraordinarily close relationship" with Charles Carneglia and his brother John, court papers show. McMahon is 20 years younger than Charles, 62, and John, 64.
On a fateful day in March, McMahon lent his minibike to mob scion Frank Gotti who was accidentally hit and killed by neighbor John Favara as he drove home from work. Favara was slain on Gotti's orders and, prosecutors say, Charles Carneglia dissolved his body in a barrel of acid.
Before the incident, McMahon had been "informally adopted" by John and Charles Carneglia. Charles Carneglia promised to protect the lad from retaliation for his role in Frankie's death.
McMahon was treated as a member of the Carneglia family, living with them for long stretches, attending family dinners and going on Carneglia family vacations, Assistant U.S. Attorney Roger Burlingame said.
Former capo Michael DiLeonardo has testified that McMahon was a "goofy kid" who taunted FBI agents, running up to them and grabbing his crotch.
McMahon had jobs with Local 638 steamfitters union and Local 52 motion pictures mechanics union, but those paid only $40,000 a year, chump change for a wanna-be Gambino associate with an ailing wife and two kids.
Prosecutors say he and Carneglia took part in extortions, art fraud and robberies, including the stickup of an armored car at Kennedy Airport in 1990 in which guard Jose Rivera Delgado was shot to death. McMahon dropped a baseball cap at the scene. DNA tests linked him to a strand of hair in the hat.
Shortly after he was arrested in 2005 on an indictment charging him with racketeering for the Gambinos in Tampa, McMahon sent a "thank you" letter to Brooklyn Magistrate Robert Levy for releasing him on bail.
"As I was leaving the courtroom you said to me, 'Don't let me down.' I assure you I have not," he wrote. "As soon as I'm acquitted I'll write you again."
McMahon turned on his adoptive mob family after he was convicted and faced 20 years behind bars. He is cooperating in hopes of winning a lesser prison term.
Thanks to John Marzulli
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Chazz Palminteri Grows Up with the Mob
How tough was the Bronx neighborhood where Chazz Palminteri grew up?
“When I was 9 years old,” the actor recalls, “I saw a guy kill another guy over a parking space.”
Palminteri has never forgotten the incident. Things like that tend to stay with you.
When in 1988 he grew discouraged at his inability to break into movies, and decided to write a one-man play that would show what he could do, that murder scene became his starting point.
A Bronx Tale
depicts Calogero (Palminteri’s real first name) growing up torn between two mentors: Sonny, the mob boss whom the lad refuses to rat out to police after witnessing the killing; and Lorenzo, Calogero’s hard-working father, a bus driver trying to teach his son not to admire the wise guys.
Palminteri premiered the play to acclaim in 1989, first in Los Angeles, then off-Broadway. It jump-started his career, sparking a Hollywood bidding war. Palminteri refused to sell the film rights unless he was part of the package, writing the screenplay and playing Sonny.
Robert De Niro agreed to Palminteri’s terms, making his directorial debut with A Bronx Tale and co-starring as Lorenzo. A critical and box-office hit in 1993, it launched Palminteri’s film career, including his Oscar-nominated performance in Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway
and other highlights from The Usual Suspects (Special Editon)
and Hurlyburly to A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.
Palminteri returned to A Bronx Tale during the 2007-08 Broadway season, again to critical acclaim, followed by the national tour that brings the show to Hobby Center Tuesday.
"I wanted to get back to theater,” he says. “Everybody who’d seen the original run had talked about it for 20 years. And there’s a whole new generation of people who never saw it. I thought I should do it while I was still young enough. In another 20 years, I might not be up to the challenge. When you see me perform it on stage, you’ll see why.”
As to assuming the rigors of a tour, he says, “I was not going to let anybody else do the tour. This is my story.”
How tough was it for Palminteri to get a break in pictures? “The play was born out of my desperation to get a start in movies,” he says. “I’d studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio and acted off-Broadway before moving to Hollywood to try my luck at movies. I got TV guest shots but was finding it really hard to get into feature films.”
His low point was being fired from a job as nightclub doorman. “One night I didn’t let this gentleman into a party. And it turned out he was (famed agent) Swifty Lazar. And it was his party. I don’t know how I didn’t recognize him. “After getting fired, I went home and sat on the edge of my bed. Then I saw this card my dad had given me, emblazoned with the motto ‘The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.’ I said to myself, “I’m not going to waste my life or my talent. If they won’t give me a part, I’ll write one myself.”
Starting with the murder, he wrote the play in 5- to 10-minute sections. “I’d try each segment out in front of an audience on Monday nights at Theatre West in L.A. I’d tighten and fine-tune it, before coming back the next week with another 5 to 10 minutes. By the end of the year, I had a tight, 90-minute play.”
Palminteri says about 70 percent of A Bronx Tale comes from his life, though he has consolidated some events and tweaked the time frame to better serve the coming-of-age story that follows Calogero from ages 9 to 17.
“Authenticity counts,” Palminteri says. “It matters. I wanted to show the story not in blacks-and-whites, but shades of gray. Sonny isn’t all bad, Lorenzo isn’t all good. Calogero takes the best qualities of both as he grows to manhood.”
While the script has changed little since Palminteri first performed the play in 1989, it’s getting a more elaborate production this time. “I wanted to bring it back with a major director,” he says. He got one of Broadway’s best, four-time Tony winner Jerry Zaks (Guys and Dolls, Six Degrees of Separation, The House of Blue Leaves, Lend Me a Tenor.)
“What’s different is the presentation. There’s much more of a Broadway-caliber production around the performance.
“It’s also a different experience for me, emotionally deeper, because I’ve changed. When I did the play before, I hadn’t experienced marriage or fatherhood, and I identified with the son. Now I’m married, I have a son and daughter, and I identify much more with Lorenzo.”
While that may be the character with whom Palminteri feels the strongest identification, one of the biggest kicks of the show is getting to play 18 characters, including neighborhood eccentrics and assorted (not so) goodfellas.
How tough is Palminteri? In Faithful, he terrorized Cher. (Think about it.) Even in casual conversation, Palminteri’s voice carries that street-toughened edge of authority.
Some might say that quality has led to a certain amount of typecasting. But Palminteri has played characters on both sides of the law — not just mob bosses and hit men, but cops, lawyers and prosecutors (though not all were straight-arrow types.)
“Sure, the most famous roles are the tough guys, but I’ve done a lot of different movies. I prize my work in independent films like A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, even if they’re not the most widely seen.”
Yonkers Joe, his latest of those, lets him mine both tough and tender veins. In the title role, he plays a professional gambler who must take on the care of his 20-year-old Down syndrome son, who’s not lived with him in years.
Palminteri anticipates being back on stage again in the next couple of years, either in Joanna Baldwin’s A Child-Proof Room or in a new play he’s writing.
Palminteri anticipates being back on stage again in the next couple of years, either in Joanna Baldwin’s A Child-Proof Room or in a new play he’s writing.
For now, he’s finding inspiration taking A Bronx Tale to audiences across the nation.
“The play is about the message on that card my father gave me,” he says. “About not wasting your life or your talent. I had cards printed up with that message and, when young people ask for my autograph after the show, I hand them that card.
“I’ve gotten a lot of calls from parents, from guidance counselors, saying the show’s message helped someone. ‘My son was on drugs and seeing the show changed him.’ Being able to have that effect is certainly inspirational to me.”
Thanks to Everett Evans
“When I was 9 years old,” the actor recalls, “I saw a guy kill another guy over a parking space.”
Palminteri has never forgotten the incident. Things like that tend to stay with you.
When in 1988 he grew discouraged at his inability to break into movies, and decided to write a one-man play that would show what he could do, that murder scene became his starting point.
A Bronx Tale
depicts Calogero (Palminteri’s real first name) growing up torn between two mentors: Sonny, the mob boss whom the lad refuses to rat out to police after witnessing the killing; and Lorenzo, Calogero’s hard-working father, a bus driver trying to teach his son not to admire the wise guys.Palminteri premiered the play to acclaim in 1989, first in Los Angeles, then off-Broadway. It jump-started his career, sparking a Hollywood bidding war. Palminteri refused to sell the film rights unless he was part of the package, writing the screenplay and playing Sonny.
Robert De Niro agreed to Palminteri’s terms, making his directorial debut with A Bronx Tale and co-starring as Lorenzo. A critical and box-office hit in 1993, it launched Palminteri’s film career, including his Oscar-nominated performance in Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway
and other highlights from The Usual Suspects (Special Editon)and Hurlyburly to A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.Palminteri returned to A Bronx Tale during the 2007-08 Broadway season, again to critical acclaim, followed by the national tour that brings the show to Hobby Center Tuesday.
"I wanted to get back to theater,” he says. “Everybody who’d seen the original run had talked about it for 20 years. And there’s a whole new generation of people who never saw it. I thought I should do it while I was still young enough. In another 20 years, I might not be up to the challenge. When you see me perform it on stage, you’ll see why.”
As to assuming the rigors of a tour, he says, “I was not going to let anybody else do the tour. This is my story.”
How tough was it for Palminteri to get a break in pictures? “The play was born out of my desperation to get a start in movies,” he says. “I’d studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio and acted off-Broadway before moving to Hollywood to try my luck at movies. I got TV guest shots but was finding it really hard to get into feature films.”
His low point was being fired from a job as nightclub doorman. “One night I didn’t let this gentleman into a party. And it turned out he was (famed agent) Swifty Lazar. And it was his party. I don’t know how I didn’t recognize him. “After getting fired, I went home and sat on the edge of my bed. Then I saw this card my dad had given me, emblazoned with the motto ‘The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.’ I said to myself, “I’m not going to waste my life or my talent. If they won’t give me a part, I’ll write one myself.”
Starting with the murder, he wrote the play in 5- to 10-minute sections. “I’d try each segment out in front of an audience on Monday nights at Theatre West in L.A. I’d tighten and fine-tune it, before coming back the next week with another 5 to 10 minutes. By the end of the year, I had a tight, 90-minute play.”
Palminteri says about 70 percent of A Bronx Tale comes from his life, though he has consolidated some events and tweaked the time frame to better serve the coming-of-age story that follows Calogero from ages 9 to 17.
“Authenticity counts,” Palminteri says. “It matters. I wanted to show the story not in blacks-and-whites, but shades of gray. Sonny isn’t all bad, Lorenzo isn’t all good. Calogero takes the best qualities of both as he grows to manhood.”
While the script has changed little since Palminteri first performed the play in 1989, it’s getting a more elaborate production this time. “I wanted to bring it back with a major director,” he says. He got one of Broadway’s best, four-time Tony winner Jerry Zaks (Guys and Dolls, Six Degrees of Separation, The House of Blue Leaves, Lend Me a Tenor.)
“What’s different is the presentation. There’s much more of a Broadway-caliber production around the performance.
“It’s also a different experience for me, emotionally deeper, because I’ve changed. When I did the play before, I hadn’t experienced marriage or fatherhood, and I identified with the son. Now I’m married, I have a son and daughter, and I identify much more with Lorenzo.”
While that may be the character with whom Palminteri feels the strongest identification, one of the biggest kicks of the show is getting to play 18 characters, including neighborhood eccentrics and assorted (not so) goodfellas.
How tough is Palminteri? In Faithful, he terrorized Cher. (Think about it.) Even in casual conversation, Palminteri’s voice carries that street-toughened edge of authority.
Some might say that quality has led to a certain amount of typecasting. But Palminteri has played characters on both sides of the law — not just mob bosses and hit men, but cops, lawyers and prosecutors (though not all were straight-arrow types.)
“Sure, the most famous roles are the tough guys, but I’ve done a lot of different movies. I prize my work in independent films like A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, even if they’re not the most widely seen.”
Yonkers Joe, his latest of those, lets him mine both tough and tender veins. In the title role, he plays a professional gambler who must take on the care of his 20-year-old Down syndrome son, who’s not lived with him in years.
Palminteri anticipates being back on stage again in the next couple of years, either in Joanna Baldwin’s A Child-Proof Room or in a new play he’s writing.
Palminteri anticipates being back on stage again in the next couple of years, either in Joanna Baldwin’s A Child-Proof Room or in a new play he’s writing.
For now, he’s finding inspiration taking A Bronx Tale to audiences across the nation.
“The play is about the message on that card my father gave me,” he says. “About not wasting your life or your talent. I had cards printed up with that message and, when young people ask for my autograph after the show, I hand them that card.
“I’ve gotten a lot of calls from parents, from guidance counselors, saying the show’s message helped someone. ‘My son was on drugs and seeing the show changed him.’ Being able to have that effect is certainly inspirational to me.”
Thanks to Everett Evans
Rod Blagojevich to Join Pro Wrestling's Main Event Mafia?
TNA Wrestling is offering the newly created position of Chairman for its Main Event Mafia faction - and the opportunity to openly sell chairs, steel chairs - to ousted Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich.
TNA officials confirmed that Blagojevich, who was impeached by the Illinois Senate on January 29, is being offered the “Chairman” job within its Main Event Mafia faction, an elite unit which includes U.S. Olympic Gold Medal winner Kurt Angle, former World Heavyweight Champions Kevin Nash, Booker T., and Scott Steiner, and reigning TNA Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion Sting.
Blagojevich was arrested on criminal charges on December 9, 2008, for conspiring to sell the senate seat vacated by then-President Elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder, but Angle truly believes in the U.S. justice system.
“He’s innocent until proven guilty,” Angle said. “As the leader of the Main Event Mafia, I am a huge fan of the Illinois style of politics. As such, Governor Blagojevich is welcome to join me and the entire Main Event Mafia at any and all TNA events in the future, and certainly is welcome to sell his seat with us should he choose not to accept our generous offer.”
Blagojevich is a former amateur boxer, so Angle is convinced Blagojevich, “easily will be able to handle the transition to pro wrestling,” Angle said.
The Illinois House of Representatives voted in favor of impeachment by an astounding margin of 114-1. The Illinois Senate voted 59-0 to remove him as governor, and passed legislation to prevent him from returning to office in the future.
TNA officials confirmed that Blagojevich, who was impeached by the Illinois Senate on January 29, is being offered the “Chairman” job within its Main Event Mafia faction, an elite unit which includes U.S. Olympic Gold Medal winner Kurt Angle, former World Heavyweight Champions Kevin Nash, Booker T., and Scott Steiner, and reigning TNA Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion Sting.
Blagojevich was arrested on criminal charges on December 9, 2008, for conspiring to sell the senate seat vacated by then-President Elect Barack Obama to the highest bidder, but Angle truly believes in the U.S. justice system.
“He’s innocent until proven guilty,” Angle said. “As the leader of the Main Event Mafia, I am a huge fan of the Illinois style of politics. As such, Governor Blagojevich is welcome to join me and the entire Main Event Mafia at any and all TNA events in the future, and certainly is welcome to sell his seat with us should he choose not to accept our generous offer.”
Blagojevich is a former amateur boxer, so Angle is convinced Blagojevich, “easily will be able to handle the transition to pro wrestling,” Angle said.
The Illinois House of Representatives voted in favor of impeachment by an astounding margin of 114-1. The Illinois Senate voted 59-0 to remove him as governor, and passed legislation to prevent him from returning to office in the future.
Former State Lawyer Charges Blagojevich with Attempting to Steer Casino License to "Mobbed Up" Bidder
A former high-ranking state lawyer says she suffered dire consequences after refusing to take part in what she contends was the beginning of Governor Rod Blagojevich's corruption.
Unlike the impeachment and the criminal charges now facing Governor Blagojevich, what you are about to see is not from last month or even last year.
The corruption allegations began more than five years ago shortly after Rod Blagojevich was elected for the first time on a promise to reform Illinois politics.
"Today is my first full day on the job. I want to make clear that business as usual in Illinois state government is a thing of the past," said Blagojevich on Jan 14, 2003.
With that pledge, Mr. Blagojevich was off and running as Illinois governor. But in January 2003, as he jogged past the capitol, he didn't know that six years later the general assembly would be inside trying to throw him out. But a long-time state government attorney says that in 2003 she quickly had a sense of what was to come. "I was told that I would suffer dire consequences if I did not cooperate with the wishes of the administration," said Jeanette Tamayo, former state lawyer.
After the Blagojevich administration took charge six years ago, Tamayo was promoted from deputy chief legal counsel at the Illinois Gaming Board to interim administrator. At the time, gaming board members were deciding who would receive Illinois' tenth and final casino license. "It was very clear that the governor's interest revolved around the casino and the Village of Rosemont," said Tamayo.
Gaming board investigators didn't want Rosemont which they considered mobbed up. But according to a federal lawsuit filed by Jeanette Tamayo against Mr. Blagojevich and two of his top aides, Tamayo was threatened with retaliation and punishment if she didn't support a casino license for Rosemont.
"I received communications indicating what should happen with the gaming board and when I declined to cooperate with what I thought were unlawful or inappropriate requests, then my salary was not paid," said Tamayo.
Tamayo said "attempts to influence the outcome of the casino licensing investigation" were led by Chris Kelly who wasn't even a state employee. He was Blagojevich's chief fundraiser.
"He [Kelly] appeared at typically private meetings between the litigation counsel involved in the emerald casino cases and said 'I'm here. I represent the governor. I'm here to carry out his interests and this is what you are going to do'. He was not a lawyer. He was not on the state payroll. He just appeared as a representative of the governor and communicated or expressed that he was communicating the governor's wishes" said Tamayo.
Mr. Kelly's attorney Michael Monico of Chicago said that Kelly did nothing improper or illegal in any dealings with the Illinois Gaming Board. Kelly, who recently pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges, is not a named defendant in the lawsuit.
Former Blagojevich chief of staff Lon Monk is named in the suit, along with Illinois revenue director Brian Hamer who still holds that state job.
"On a state holiday I was invited to a meeting organized by the governor's staff, Lon Monk, to explain why I was not cooperating with the Illinois Department of Revenue. It was made very clear to me at that meeting that my cooperation was expected and how that cooperation was expected. And it was not a pleasant meeting," said Tamayo.
"When she resisted the governor and his administration's efforts to control and essentially take over the Illinois Gaming Board, she was retaliated against in terms of how she was treated and the salary the Illinois Gaming Board had approved for her," said Michael Condon, Tamayo's lawyer.
Tamayo says she complained to the house gaming committee, to other gaming board officials and went to the Illinois attorney general, questioning whether Blagojevich had a right to interfere with the supposedly independent board. That's when she claims to have been muscled by revenue boss Brian Hamer whom the suit says Mr. Blagojevich said "was his guy."
"He ordered me to stop consulting with the Attorney General and to instead consult with the governor's counsel," said Tamayo.
"What's come to light is a pattern of behavior by the governor and his administration in terms of how state government was being run and operated," said Condon.
Lawyers for the governor, his former chief of staff, the Illinois Gaming Board and the state revenue director would not comment for this report.
Lawyers for the Jeanette Tamayo case say they will soon try to have Blagojevich, Monk and Haymer come in for depositions in the case, all aimed at getting Tamayo her full back pay. She says she was forced to resign in 2006 and after a short stint at the Chicago Crime Commission, is now unemployed.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
Unlike the impeachment and the criminal charges now facing Governor Blagojevich, what you are about to see is not from last month or even last year.
The corruption allegations began more than five years ago shortly after Rod Blagojevich was elected for the first time on a promise to reform Illinois politics.
"Today is my first full day on the job. I want to make clear that business as usual in Illinois state government is a thing of the past," said Blagojevich on Jan 14, 2003.
With that pledge, Mr. Blagojevich was off and running as Illinois governor. But in January 2003, as he jogged past the capitol, he didn't know that six years later the general assembly would be inside trying to throw him out. But a long-time state government attorney says that in 2003 she quickly had a sense of what was to come. "I was told that I would suffer dire consequences if I did not cooperate with the wishes of the administration," said Jeanette Tamayo, former state lawyer.
After the Blagojevich administration took charge six years ago, Tamayo was promoted from deputy chief legal counsel at the Illinois Gaming Board to interim administrator. At the time, gaming board members were deciding who would receive Illinois' tenth and final casino license. "It was very clear that the governor's interest revolved around the casino and the Village of Rosemont," said Tamayo.
Gaming board investigators didn't want Rosemont which they considered mobbed up. But according to a federal lawsuit filed by Jeanette Tamayo against Mr. Blagojevich and two of his top aides, Tamayo was threatened with retaliation and punishment if she didn't support a casino license for Rosemont.
"I received communications indicating what should happen with the gaming board and when I declined to cooperate with what I thought were unlawful or inappropriate requests, then my salary was not paid," said Tamayo.
Tamayo said "attempts to influence the outcome of the casino licensing investigation" were led by Chris Kelly who wasn't even a state employee. He was Blagojevich's chief fundraiser.
"He [Kelly] appeared at typically private meetings between the litigation counsel involved in the emerald casino cases and said 'I'm here. I represent the governor. I'm here to carry out his interests and this is what you are going to do'. He was not a lawyer. He was not on the state payroll. He just appeared as a representative of the governor and communicated or expressed that he was communicating the governor's wishes" said Tamayo.
Mr. Kelly's attorney Michael Monico of Chicago said that Kelly did nothing improper or illegal in any dealings with the Illinois Gaming Board. Kelly, who recently pleaded guilty to tax fraud charges, is not a named defendant in the lawsuit.
Former Blagojevich chief of staff Lon Monk is named in the suit, along with Illinois revenue director Brian Hamer who still holds that state job.
"On a state holiday I was invited to a meeting organized by the governor's staff, Lon Monk, to explain why I was not cooperating with the Illinois Department of Revenue. It was made very clear to me at that meeting that my cooperation was expected and how that cooperation was expected. And it was not a pleasant meeting," said Tamayo.
"When she resisted the governor and his administration's efforts to control and essentially take over the Illinois Gaming Board, she was retaliated against in terms of how she was treated and the salary the Illinois Gaming Board had approved for her," said Michael Condon, Tamayo's lawyer.
Tamayo says she complained to the house gaming committee, to other gaming board officials and went to the Illinois attorney general, questioning whether Blagojevich had a right to interfere with the supposedly independent board. That's when she claims to have been muscled by revenue boss Brian Hamer whom the suit says Mr. Blagojevich said "was his guy."
"He ordered me to stop consulting with the Attorney General and to instead consult with the governor's counsel," said Tamayo.
"What's come to light is a pattern of behavior by the governor and his administration in terms of how state government was being run and operated," said Condon.
Lawyers for the governor, his former chief of staff, the Illinois Gaming Board and the state revenue director would not comment for this report.
Lawyers for the Jeanette Tamayo case say they will soon try to have Blagojevich, Monk and Haymer come in for depositions in the case, all aimed at getting Tamayo her full back pay. She says she was forced to resign in 2006 and after a short stint at the Chicago Crime Commission, is now unemployed.
Thanks to Chuck Goudie
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