Shortly after becoming governor, relations between "Blago" and Mell went south, and the two men didn't speak to each other for a year or so. "Tense" probably best describes their current relationship.
It was expected that the prosecution's star witness, Stuart Levine, would testify today. But instead, an ailing Sheldon Pekin, who is suffering from Parkinson's disease, took the stand.
From AP:
A money manager testified Monday that he arranged a $50 million deal involving the state teachers pension fund and agreed to split the finder's fee he received with Gov. Rod Blagojevich's father-in-law.
But money manager Sheldon Pekin told the jury at political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko's fraud trial that the governor's father-in-law, Chicago Alderman Richard Mell, never got the money. Pekin testified that the order to split the fee with Mell came from millionaire attorney Stuart Levine, Rezko's alleged partner in a massive fraud scheme.
Pekin said Levine told him in 2003 that Mell was unhappy because his daughter's husband had been elected governor but he wasn't getting any benefit from it.
"He was upset because he wasn't participating in the spoils," Pekin quoted Levine as saying of Mell.
Poor Mell. Another example of an Illinois "public servant."
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