Any of your friends give one of your kids $1,500?
From The AP
Federal investigators have questioned the wife of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's former campaign treasurer about a $1,500 personal check her husband wrote to one of the governor's children and whether the money was linked to her hiring for a state job, according to a published report.
Beverly Ascaridis, who started her $45,000-a-year position as a state parks administrator in August 2003, told the Chicago Tribune that FBI agents have interviewed her and her husband about the check.
Read the whole story, it inolves a job that got moved from Whiteside County to DuPage County and some other stuff, the print edition of the Sunday Trib has it above the fold with much more detail, including the timing of the gift check relative to when someone got a job.
Suffice to say with everything that happened with George, this has to be awkward. Remember someone paying for the band at Georges daughter's wedding?
OneMan
31 comments:
I supported Blago heavily in the past. Many elections-not just for Governor. I can't begin to express what a dissapointment he has been. For him to have this guy slip him cash under the guise of a present for his daughter is beyond low. What ever happened to the envelope left on the desk stuffed with cash.
Of course Blago says this guy is his friend and that is why he gave $1500 bucks for his daughters birthday. My question is, if he is such a good friend, he would be giving gifts like that every year-right. So where are the other checks?
If the Gov is willing to lose his job and probably his freedom for $1500 bucks, what else was he up too. It really is a joke.
My God, would the blessed FEDS please concentrate on Chicago City Hall? Or did Richard Daley make a deal with George Dumbya like the rumor that floating aroung. D.W.
Just be patient, someone from the campaign will be on here soon to explain everything and to blast the Trib as a batch of scoundrels.
I would put odds on that the Resko real estate referrals to Patti weren't because she sat in on open houses.
I am voting for Blagojevich, but only if he is definitely getting indicted. That way Pat Quinn will be governor.
If he is not going to be indicted, than I will be voting for Topinka, she will only be there for 4 years anyway.
My gift for Rod and Patti is COAL.
The gift from the US Attorneys for both of their greedy, lack of talent, sociopathic, arrogant, pathological, 1st gov and "lady" is going to be JAIL. If they can stay married through jail that will be a lot.
HOME DEPOT remember who owned it and how it go through???????
Real estate fees????? QUID PRO QOU
(Rod didn't study Latin did he)
This is ridulous. If they were trying to hide something then why would they report it as a gift?
If you are a millionaire, $1500 is nothing. Seriously, this sounds legit. I mean they have been lifelong friends.
There would be no story if the guys wife wasnt off her rocker. She said she hated the governor with every fiber of her body. I think she is out to get him...
She is the one that needs to be investigated.
Tick... Tick... Tick...
Rod, Patti, Mel, Secretary Martin, Joe Cini, Scott Dubet, Mike Stout, Robin Black... and the list goes on...
Boom!
Rod originally failed to report the gift and only disclosed it AFTER he was interviewed by the feds. The guy who gave him the $1,500 is no millionaire -- he's a city of Chicago accountant and his wife is a $45,000 a year state employee.
Will the Governor's campaign staff please stop all the blogging and get him re-elected. He may not be the best but he's better than the alternative. Thank you very much.
6:33,
The only one on your list that won't be in trouble is Mell.
I'm with you, Lovie.
And please, someone explain to me why if the guy supposedly gave the Governor's duaghter a check for $1,500, he never bothered to tell his wife?
If I were Michael Ascaridis's lawyer, I'd be wondering about my client's decision to keep this gift a secret and if that check was actually deposited into a college fund. I would also advise my client that it's not worth having the feds perform a colonoscopy on you to protect the Governor. Team Fitz has shown that they can not only indict a ham sandwich, they can also get a conviction.
I'm willing to wait and see on this. When we are predisposed to think the worst, even the innocuous can look sinister.
Rod is changing business as usual
He is the best governor since George Ryan
He is the best governor money can buy
Martin, Hartman--Christopher
Is it just me, or does anybody else think that the dinnertime conversation at Mike and Bev's tonight may have been a bit strained ?
ALL LIES TO GET ROD
ROD THE TALL GOLEM
BAD GOLEM ROD
THE GOVERNORS RING I WANT IT
MACBETH KILLED THE FATHER IN LAW MELL
NO, VOICES IN MY HEAD
I AM NOT A SOCIOPATH
I AM NOT A BACKSTABBER
I AM NOT A LIAR
PATTI GET ME THE MEDS
CALL LON
CALL CHRIS
MONEY DOESN'T MAKE IT BETTER
YOU ARE OUT TO GET ME
LIES LIES LIES
Steve Schnorf, I can't believe this is really you posting that comment. It must be someone using your name because it's not like you to sit on the political fence.
so what happens if Rod drops out of the race?
How much of this can he (Illinois) take?
Anonymous
I think on the fence is where we belong on this issue, unless you have evidence I don't. Appearance of impropriety is in the eye of the beholder, and I've seen far too many time when the beholder is just flat wrong. I'll wait and see.
If there's really something to it, we'll find out in good time. Before that all is idle speculation.
Steve -
If it has a big duck bill,swims in the water, lays eggs and waddles when it walks, it's probably a duck.
Sure, it could be a platypus if we were in New Zealand. But we're not.
The Tribune offers great blow-by-blow coverage of this story, including the fact that Blagojevich never reported a gift of $250 or more from Michael Ascaridis during the entire time he was in Congress. Right around the time his wife got a state job sure was a funny time to decide to crank out a check for $1500.
I'd sure hate to go before a judge or jury with these set of facts, including the fact that his wife thought he'd done something wrong and reported it to the feds.
I also can't wait to hear the reason why this guy that the governor's campaign claims is "like a second brother to the governor, and like a godparent to the governor's kids" has never written a personal check to the Governor's campaign. I guess he was too busy putting the Governor's daughter through college.
BTW, it would be interesting to know whether the Governor had a fundraiser in the end of July/beginning of August in 2003, and what the ticket price was.
Here's my bet: Mike Ascaradis went to a Blagojevich event with a ticket price of $1,500 around the same time as a way of saying thanks for the job, but didn't want to show up on the Governor's D-2's, either because he didn't want to tick off Dick Mell (Mike works for the City, right? And he's contributed to Mell. Connect the dots) or because it looks pretty fishy when the husband of a woman who just got a state job writes a fat check to her new boss, especially when her new boss says he doesn't take checks from state employees.
If the feds are smart, they'll subpeona all fundraising records of the Governor's campaign.
I WILL give the Gov and his "second brother" the benefit-of-the-doubt on whether that $1,500 was quid pro quo for his wife's job, I think friendship probably did the trick. But it raises a second thorny question: was it really ethical for the Gov's office to go to such lengths to twist the state's hiring laws to hire a woman who is like a sister-in-law to him, and isn't that nepotism? And if it isn't business as usual, what do you call it?
What I find interesting is that the Gov's best friends wife Beverly said
"I don't know what kind of witness I'll make for them anyway," she said. "I hate the man with every fiber of my being."
Those who know Rod the best hate him the most.
Dog, I didn't say it wasn't business as usual. I may not be as troubled by "as usual" as many here, but I don't find a Governor giving a friend's wife a job a very big deal. If the personnel sysytem was manipulated (the "I don't know where Whiteside County is") that's a little more concern, but in my mind not that huge, so long as neither she nor the Governor knew about it.
Steve, how could she not know when she would have had to list Whiteside County on her CMS100 application for County Choice?
She knew enough about it that she didn't want to live there.
Steve, I'm so extremely disappointed in your thought process on this one. I'm sure you have heard the phrase "one awe sh** wipes out all the atta boys." Unfortunately, this is your awe sh**. It's going to be a while before I personally give your comments the credibility I once did. I perhaps am not alone in my thinking. Sitting on the political fence is not always the prudent thing to do. There is so much corruption going on with GoverNOT Hairdo's administration and just when we think it can't get worse, information about a $1,500 check for his daughter's 7th birthday comes forth. If this friend is such a good friend, then show that there have been other "gifts" for the prior 6 birthdays for this daughter. It doesn't have to be a huge amount, but it darned well better be for something before there is some believability to this story. Is Elvis deliberately trying to self-implode before the election. Even JBT couldn't have hoped for better publicity for her own campaign.
My guess is she didn't fill out the county choice section of the CMS 100 herself, or she listed DuPage and someone else added Whiteside. But again, we're all guessing, aren't we?
Hey Steve. Can you guess what I am thinking right now?
My guess is she didn't fill out the county choice section of the CMS 100 herself, or she listed DuPage and someone else added Whiteside. But again, we're all guessing, aren't we?
Yes, we are, and we shouldn't have too.... I don't think Whiteside was a random pick... there was a reason DuPage wouldn't work, and that had to be because there was a Vet with preference ahead of her... so someone searched for a county with no vet.... and that was Whiteside.
Only explaination...
This isn't Steve Schnorf posting here. It's an imposter. This is not Steve's style to get this embroiled in a topic like this. So whomever you are, you have just been outed.
Of course there was a reason why Whiteside was picked. I can't imagine anyone doubts that.
My point is that as long as the Governor and Ms Ascaraidi weren't participants in that scheme, she very well may be an innocent victim, and as long as the Governor didn't direct or wasn't told his personnel people were doing whatever was necessary to get people into jobs, even if it violated personnel law or rules, he's not culpable either. I think it's beyond the pale to think a long-time friend and key campaign worker would effectively say, "hey Rod, thanks for the job for the Mrs, here's $1500 for the kid in return."
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