All Muck Is Local: The Family Guy

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Nobody expects a corruption trial to be pretty. And in Chicago, the much-anticipated trial of Tony Rezko — political fundraiser, business man, and thorn in Barack Obama’s side — has not disappointed.

The star witness is Stewart Levine of Chicago, a former Republican Party fundraiser, former millionaire businessman, and former serious coke head (and LSD and Quaaludes and marijuana and kaetamine and crystal meth) now supposedly working for a messenger service — though he hasn’t held a 9-5 job since 1976.

In the spring of 2004, Rezko and Levine allegedly teamed up to skim money off the top of two state pension boards Levine served on (one of them a teacher’s retirement fund no less). At the same time, the two also used their influence to pressure outside firms wanting to do business with the funds to give them thousands in kickbacks and bribes.

Levine flipped in 2006, making him the centerpiece of the prosecution’s case, the man to describe to jurors how Rezko was “the man behind the curtain, pulling the strings” as one prosecutor put it. Rezko’s lawyers, meanwhile, argue that Levine just wants to reduce his own sentence. He’s hoping to get 5 and a half years for his cooperation. Must have sounded better than 30 to life.

When he rolled out the indictment against Rezko, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald proclaimed that Tony Rezko and Stuart Levine had “put the word out loud and clear: you have to pay to play in Illinois.” Well, at least this much has become clear since Levine took the stand: paying to play is one thing, playing with a full deck is another one entirely.

Levine decidedly makes for a more convincing defendant than star witness. Some gems from the cross-examination:

“Would you say your spending was out of control?” asked Rezko’s chief defense counsel, Joseph J. Duffy, as cross-examination got under way.

“Would you explain what you mean by out of control?”

And:

Duffy: “You’ve been involved in criminal activity your entire adult life?”

Levine: “No, sir.”

Duffy: “Tell us what part of your adult life you were not involved in criminal activity.”

Levine: “In no part of my adult life was I not involved in criminal activity.”

There were also some caveats. From the AP:

Levine admitted he attended drug sessions at The Purple Hotel for 15 years but said he never did so on Saturday when he was with his family. Duffy immediately produced a credit card bill showing Levine had charged $761 at the hotel on Nov. 2, 2002, which was a Saturday.

Levine said he believed that was merely the “transaction date” and not one of the days when one of the marathon drug sessions had been held.

But Duffy brushed that aside.

“You cannot, Sir, say with any certainty that you did not have a room at the hotel on Nov. 2, 2002, can you?”
Duffy asked.

“No, Sir,” Levine said.

Levine is back on the stand Monday.

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