The man Blagojevich entrusted to represent him on gambling issues was a high-roller in hock to a mob bookie. According to his guilty plea, Kelly hid the use of $150,000 from his roofing company to pay off that debt and also disguised using company funds to pay a separate $147,500 gambling debt to a Las Vegas casino.
In the two years he filed public ethics statements, Kelly disclosed receiving unspecified "gifts of personal friendship" from Rezko and Blagojevich and said he'd provided them "similar gifts of personal friendship" as well. Blagojevich has steadfastly defended his friend.
Even before he became Blagojevich's guy, Kelly had been a favored contractor at City Hall, particularly for airport business, although always below the radar. That remains a point of interest now that John Harris, the governor's co-defendant and chief of staff, who also used to be Mayor Daley's aviation point man, is reported to be in talks with prosecutors.
The Kelly guilty plea got lost Friday in the haze created later by the governor's lawyers withdrawing from his impeachment trial. Like my missing inauguration program, it's bound to turn up again.
Kelly is only ratting himself out right now. But if he decides to "sing" about something else, Blago and Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago might interpret Kelly's songs as out-of-tune screeches.
But the feds like that kind of music.
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Blagojevich 
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Richard Daley 
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Tony Rezko
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