Thursday, April 25, 2019

THAT WAS QUICK

If you had "Illinois Democrat governor investigated for corruption" at or around this date, collect your winnings at the window.  Seems Fat Boy is already getting the stink eye from the feds.

Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, his wife and his brother-in-law are under federal criminal investigation for a dubious residential property tax appeal that dogged him during his gubernatorial campaign last year, WBEZ has learned.

A law-enforcement source familiar with the investigation confirmed to WBEZ that the probe, which has not been revealed publicly until now, began last October and remains active. There are no signs that criminal charges are imminent.

WBEZ has also confirmed that Illinois First Lady MK Pritzker’s personal assistant who was involved in the property tax appeal, Christine Lovely, is being represented by one of Chicago’s most high-powered lawyers. Her attorney, Reid Schar, is a former federal prosecutor who helped convict ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on corruption charges.

The developments demonstrate that the billionaire governor and his wife may face a serious legal threat arising from their controversial pursuit of a property tax break on a 126-year-old mansion they purchased next to their Gold Coast home.

Odd.  Usually takes at least a year or two for the graft to kick in.

12 comments:

Katherine said...

Chicago politics. It's what we had on the national stage for eight years, and the crooks are fighting hard against efforts to drain the swamp.

I read a lot these days about efforts by downstate Illinois to divorce itself from Chicago.

Christopher Johnson said...

"Egypt" has been making those noises forever. Wish they'd actually get around to it one of these days.

Art Deco said...

Not graft, precisely. Two things amaze you: the slow-as-molasses quality of officialdom in preparation for legal proceedings and the pettiness of it all. A man with that net worth likely has after-tax investment income in the range of $70 million a year. Can it possibly be that he and his wife would put their associates in jeopardy by having them utter perjurious attestations so as to save a little more than 1% of their available income? And what's the purpose of buying historic properties just to let them rot? They have ample margin to make an art project out of the two buildings, and perhaps make some money renovating them or converting them.

Art Deco said...

Oops. Not 1%. 0.1%.

Art Deco said...

I read a lot these days about efforts by downstate Illinois to divorce itself from Chicago.

About 2/3 of the population of Illinois lives in the dense settlement around Chicago. The rest of Illinois is largely exurban, small town, and rural. About 300,000 people live around Rockford and the Quad-cities. The rest of the metropolitan population lives in knots that range from 50,000 to 140,000 people. Joining these dissimilar areas seems perverse and you could conceivably reconstitute the state into a confederation with two grand divisions which lead separate lives. Course, you suggest that and some egg-salad sandwich from the Chicago suburbs goes berserk.

The Little Myrmidon said...

Well, not to be outdone, Federal prosecutors have charged a Newton, MA federal judge and a court officer with obstruction of justice in allowing an illegal immigrant (with several warrants) to escape out the back door of the court building, while ICE agents were kept waiting outside the courtroom.

Art Deco said...

I cannot believe she'll get the jail term she deserves for that maneuver. Would be agreeable, though.

Christopher Johnson said...

Western Kansas is pretty much the same. They don't much like the eastern part of the state but there's next-to nobody out there. That's a virtue to me but to nobody else. :-)

The Little Myrmidon said...

Correction: Judge Shelley Joseph is a MA District Court Judge, not federal.

Katherine said...

They want to ignore federal immigration and drug laws when convenient, but want all of us to accept "gender identity" and "transgender" theories which are not (at this time) part of the law.

Christopher Johnson said...

That picture at the top of this page is western Kansas, the country my grandmother grew up in. She made it to 93, as sharp as she had always been.

The Little Myrmidon said...

Further update on the Judge Joseph case: two MA moonbat DA's have filed a lawsuit against ICE to prevent federal law enforcement to enter MA district courts.