2 years, no payments -- but Rezkos still have their house
If you didn't pay the mortgage on your home for two years, would your bank let you just go on living there? Tony Rezko's has.
He hasn't made a mortgage payment on his Wilmette mansion for two years. But, rather than evict him, LaSalle Bank has let Rezko's wife and children stay there -- apparently rent-free.
Rezko -- the once-high-flying businessman convicted in June of federal corruption charges and now in prison -- has been fighting the foreclosure suit that LaSalle Bank filed in Cook County court two years ago. The bank says Rezko owes more than $5.1 million on the home, once appraised for $6.5 million.
The Rezkos haven't paid property taxes on the home since March 2006, either. They owe $86,010.31.
Tim Novak
Here's the rest of the story on Gov. Blagojevich's announcement this week that he wants to "rock the system" with new ethics reforms:
The West Side building where the governor held his news conference was once co-owned by Ali D. Ata. That would be the same Ali Ata who has pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges involving Rezko, a former Blagojevich adviser and campaign fund-raiser.
Blagojevich hired Ata to head the Illinois Finance Authority in January 2004 even though Ata and three partners didn't pay the mortgage on the 3500 W. Grand building they'd been leasing to the state and had been foreclosed upon in September 2003. In the 10 years before the foreclosure, Ata and his partners had taken in $3.2 million in rent from taxpayers.
At Rezko's trial, Ata -- a onetime Rezko business partner -- testified he made hefty campaign contributions to Blagojevich, at Rezko's urging, to land his state post. Blagojevich has denied that the contributions were behind Ata's hiring.
Chris Fusco