Star Witness Testifies At Rezko's Trial

Antoin "Tony" Rezko, 52, a prominent fundraiser for Sen. Barack Obama and Gov. Rod Blagojevich, is Stuart Levine’s alleged partner in what prosecutors describe as a massive fraud scheme in the heart of Illinois government. Neither Obama nor Blagojevich have been accused of wrongdoing.

Rezko sat and watched intently as Stuart Levine took the stand.

Rezko is charged with plotting to split a $1 million bribe with Levine and scheming with him to pressure $7 million in kickbacks out of firms that sought to invest the assets of the $30 billion fund that pays the pensions of downstate and suburban school teachers.

Rezko denies that he took part in any such scheme.

Levine did not come to the stand until late in the afternoon and barely got started talking about Rezko. But he is expected to remain on the stand for at least two weeks at the threeto four-month trial.

As he began to testify, there was none of the frantic stammering and mile-a-minute chatter that jurors have heard on tapes FBI agents made after getting a court order allowing them to wiretap Levine’s home phone.

Levine calmly testified that he took drugs for decades, including LSD, Quaaludes, marijuana, cocaine, crystal meth and kaetamine, and sometimes more than one in a single session. But he said he took them only once or twice a month and quit in 2004.

Rezko’s chief defense counsel, Joseph J. Duffy, a former federal prosecutor, has already claimed that drugs hammered Levine’s brain so hard that his memory is now faulty.

Levine testified he sprinkled bribes across state and city government to land contracts for companies that paid him big money. He said he made payoffs on behalf of companies that sold tires to the City of Chicago and school buses to the Chicago Board of Education.

Levine said he paid bribes on behalf of a health maintenance organization that wanted business from a postal union and a dental insurance plan to get business from the Chicago Board of Education.

He said he funneled payoffs through former Chicago Alderman Edward R. Vrdolyak, who currently is facing charges in connection with a real estate deal that also touches on Rezko and Levine.

Vrdolyak has pleaded not guilty. His attorneys, Michael Monico and Terence Gillespie, were not reached immediately for comment. A message was left on Monico’s voicemail and with Gillespie’s answering service.

Meanwhile, Levine, a Republican, said he hired such big GOP guns as William Cellini and Robert Kjellander to lobby the state government on behalf of the dental plan. He told the jury he was involved in politics much of his life and was a key supporter of former Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan, a classmate at Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Cellini, Kjellander and Jim Ryan are accused of no wrongdoing. But the embarrassment of finding their names tied to Levine’s underlines the explosive potential of the biggest political corruption case in Illinois since former Gov. George Ryan went to federal prison. Kjellander is a former treasurer of the Republican National Committee.

Levine estimated he contributed $500,000 to Jim Ryan’s campaign for governor in 2002 in which he was defeated by Blagojevich.

Former House Speaker Lee Daniels and George Ryan were also among the beneficiaries of his political contributions, Levine testified.