Jury Finds Tony Rezko Guilty On 16 Of 24 Charges

Obama’s statement, you are going to love this omg LOL

B.Hussein O.’s statement on Tony Rezko being convicted:
Fox News

“I’m saddened by today’s verdict. This isn’t the Tony Rezko I knew, but now he has been convicted by a jury on multiple charges that once again shine a spotlight on the need for reform. I encourage the General Assembly to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent these kinds of abuses in the future.”

Jury Finds Tony Rezko Guilty On 16 Of 24 Charges
Political Fundraiser Has Surrendered, To Begin Serving Time Immediately
CBS …for complete article
A prominent fundraiser for Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Rod Blagojevich was convicted Wednesday of fraud and money laundering after a high-profile federal trial provided an unusually detailed glimpse of the pay-to-play politics that has made Illinois infamous.
Antoin “Tony” Rezko, 52, showed no emotion as the jury delivered a mixed verdict that found him guilty of scheming with the government’s star witness to get kickbacks out of money management firms wanting state business, but acquitted him of charges that included attempted extortion.
Rezko attorney Joseph Duffy said the defense is “obviously very disappointed” in the jury’s guilty verdicts. He said Wednesday afternoon they will pursue and appeal.
Duffy says Rezko strongly believes he is innocent.
Duffy says it was Rezko’s decision to surrender and begin serving his sentence. Sentencing is set for September 3rd at 10 a.m.
The jury’s mixed verdict acquitted Rezko of some of the most serious charges, including attempted extortion. Rezko was found guilty of 16 of 24 counts.
He was found guilty on the two more serious counts, on money laundering and aiding and abetting money laundering, counts 23 and 24.
The jury obviously took issue with some of the charges, resulting in the eight acquittals. They wrestled over matters in a 13-day deliberation process, delivering its verdict after a nine-week trial.
But DuPage County State’s Attorney Joe Birkett, who ran against Blagojevich in the 2006 race for governor:

“The conviction of Tony Rezko represents a deep stain on the Democratic Party in Illinois. Democrats from top to bottom, including Barack Obama, stood idly by — and in some instances directly benefited — while the massive Blagojevich corruption scheme flourished. They rode into office promising to clean up after the George Ryan scandals and they have taken corruption in Illinois to a new low. They ought to be held accountable at the polls starting this November.”

This is another write up on it with added information
Chicago Tribune

8 Things about Obama and Rezko
Chicago Sun Times
Having a hard time keeping track of the facts? Here are eight things to know:
1. They met in 1990. Obama was a student at Harvard Law School and got an unsolicited job offer from Rezko, then a low-income housing developer in Chicago. Obama turned it down.
2. Obama took a job in 1993 with a small Chicago law firm, Davis Miner Barnhill, that represents developers — primarily not-for-profit groups — building low-income housing with government funds.
3. One of the firm’s not-for-profit clients — the Woodlawn Preservation and Investment Corp., co-founded by Obama’s then-boss Allison Davis — was partners with Rezko’s company in a 1995 deal to convert an abandoned nursing home at 61st and Drexel into low-income apartments. Altogether, Obama spent 32 hours on the project, according to the firm. Only five hours of that came after Rezko and WPIC became partners, the firm says. The rest of the future senator’s time was helping WPIC strike the deal with Rezko. Rezko’s company, Rezmar Corp., also partnered with the firm’s clients in four later deals — none of which involved Obama, according to the firm. In each deal, Rezmar “made the decisions for the joint venture,” says William Miceli, an attorney with the firm.
4. In 1995, Obama began campaigning for a seat in the Illinois Senate. Among his earliest supporters: Rezko. Two Rezko companies donated a total of $2,000. Obama was elected in 1996 — representing a district that included 11 of Rezko’s 30 low-income housing projects.
5. Rezko’s low-income housing empire began crumbling in 2001, when his company stopped making mortgage payments on the old nursing home that had been converted into apartments. The state foreclosed on the building — which was in Obama’s Illinois Senate district.
6. In 2003, Obama announced he was running for the U.S. Senate, and Rezko — a member of his campaign finance committee — held a lavish fund-raiser June 27, 2003, at his Wilmette mansion.
7. A few months after Obama became a U.S. senator, he and Rezko’s wife, Rita, bought adjacent pieces of property from a doctor in Chicago’s Kenwood neighborhood — a deal that has dogged Obama the last two years. The doctor sold the mansion to Obama for $1.65 million — $300,000 below the asking price. Rezko’s wife paid full price — $625,000 — for the adjacent vacant lot. The deals closed in June 2005. Six months later, Obama paid Rezko’s wife $104,500 for a strip of her land, so he could have a bigger yard. At the time, it had been widely reported that Tony Rezko was under federal investigation. Questioned later about the timing of the Rezko deal, Obama called it “boneheaded” because people might think the Rezkos had done him a favor.
8. Eight months later — in October 2006 — Rezko was indicted on charges he solicited kickbacks from companies seeking state pension business under his friend Gov. Blagojevich. Federal prosecutors maintain that $10,000 from the alleged kickback scheme was donated to Obama’s run for the U.S. Senate. Obama has given the money to charity.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Apparently obama had absolutely no idea what was going on around him for decades. Rezko, Wright, Pfleger…all of them somehow are not the people he once knew. LMAO
He said the same thing about each one of them…”This isn’t the FILL IN THE BLANK I knew.”
After Manhatten goes up in a nuke fireball he will say …” That was the Amadmanjihad that I knew…. um.. um…um
Liberal mental disease at its finest… I guess it only matters if they say it does… we are in for a dosey come November.
I just found out the REAL reason Rezko and Wright aren’t the people Obama knew. heh heh

Invasion of the Body Snatchers