Rezko house: No takers
WILMETTE | Imprisoned fund-raiser's digs sold to bank for $2.8 million
Tony Rezko, court records show, had a net worth of $53 million in 2003 -- the same year LaSalle Bank gave him a $5 million-plus mortgage for his mansion in Wilmette.
If the walls could talk, they'd tell stories about the parties Rezko threw there, including campaign fund-raisers for ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich and President Obama.
(Al Podgorski/Sun-Times)
Now, with Rezko behind bars and his business empire destroyed, the 8,596-square-foot home went on the auction block Monday after being foreclosed upon in May.
Nobody wanted it.
Bank of America, which acquired LaSalle in 2007 and inherited Rezko's loan, bought the place for the minimum price it had set before the auction: $2,835,814.
Fred Lappe, an attorney for Intercounty Judicial Sales Corp., read the sale price three times, and the home was sold.
It wasn't clear whether Rezko's family was still living at the house, which reportedly has a gold faucet in a first-floor bathroom. But if they are, they'll have 30 days to move out after a judge approves the sale.
Then, it will be up to Bank of America to try to sell the mansion, which comes with $220,114.37 in back taxes and penalties that Rezko didn't pay and a six-figure lien filed by a landscape-architecture company that designed the yard.
Rezko is awaiting sentencing after being convicted last year of wide-ranging corruption involving state deals. An attorney handling his foreclosure case did not return a telephone message.