Very impressive, Illinois. Last week, the former governor, George Ryan (R), was sentenced to six plus years in prison on corruption charges. And now, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (yep, that Patrick Fitzgerald) is investigating current governor Rod Blagojevich (D) for “endemic hiring fraud” (i.e. cronyism). The muck is flying fast.
Sunday’s Chicago Tribune has the latest of what is turning into a very messy investigation:
The FBI is investigating allegations by the wife of Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s former campaign treasurer that her state job may have come in return for a $1,500 personal check her husband wrote to one of Blagojevich’s children….
The governor’s office released a statement Friday saying the check was a gift for his daughter’s 7th birthday from the governor’s best friend and any suggestion otherwise is “simply ludicrous.”
“It is an outrage that we even have to answer this question,” the statement said.
Yes, you read that right. A $1,500 check to a seven year-old girl. Continuing…
Beverly Ascaridis, who has already been identified in an internal state probe as receiving special treatment to get her job, confirmed federal agents interviewed her and her husband in recent weeks about the check. It was dated within two weeks after she began her $45,000-a-year job as a state parks administrator in August 2003, according to Ascaridis and sources familiar with the investigation.
And here’s where it gets really good. Ms. Ascaridis is apparently not as appreciative of her state parks gig as she should be. However close her husband is with Gov. Blagojevich, she tells The Tribune “I hate the man [Blagojevich] with every fiber of my being.” So she tipped the feds.
Although Michael Ascaridis has a long-held personal friendship with Blagojevich, Beverly Ascaridis said it was the only time she’s aware that such a check was written to the governor’s family, and that the timing so close to her hire date raised her suspicions.
“Yeah, doesn’t that seem strange?” she said.
Do yourself a favor and read the whole article. I guess the moral of the story is, if you’re going to accept a payoff for doling out a state job, be sure that your crony doesn’t hate you with every fiber of her being.
