Patti Blagojevich fired from charity job
Illinois First Lady Patti Blagojevich is out of a job.
Blagojevich — who started Sept. 1 as development director of the 100-year-old Chicago Christian Industrial League — was quietly dismissed from her $100,000-a-year job on Tuesday.
(AP)
“We exercised the right to terminate her contract,” said Mary Shaver, interim executive director of the charity.
Hired to raise money for a state-of-the-art but financially troubled shelter on the West Side that provides transitional housing, training and counseling to the homeless, Blagojevich had a one-year contract.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported Jan. 8 that the charity raises about $1 million a year but needed to increase that to $2 million. Its big hurdle: repaying a $10.8 million loan it obtained from ShoreBank with help from the Illinois Finance Authority — a state agency created by Blagojevich’s husband, the governor — to build the $25 million homeless shelter.
The Sun-Times reported that, in each of Patti Blagojevich’s first three months on the job, the Christian Industrial League brought in $10,000 to $15,000 a month — the same as it did before she started, according to president William Good.
Gov. Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 on federal charges he tried to trade official government actions for campaign contributions — including trying to sell an appointment to replace President Obama in the U.S. Senate.
The first lady is overheard on some of the government wiretaps from the investigation into her husband. She has hired a criminal defense lawyer but has not been charged with any crime.
“She did a good job, but the circumstances made it very difficult for her,” a source on the league’s board said.
Another source said: “It’s pretty clear her ability to raise funds for the league would be hampered by headlines, and news media camping out in front of the league waiting to question her didn’t help.”