First group of jurors interviewed in Rezko case

The first batch of potential jurors in the federal fraud trial of political fund-raiser Antoin ‘‘Tony’’ Rezko ranged from a legal clerk to a woman whose son served 12 years in prison for murder.

Under questioning in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve, one man said he’d once been arrested for possessing a ‘‘small amount of cannabis,’’ another had been arrested for underage drinking.

And an 8th grade teacher told the judge she hoped the trial would wrap up before a trip to Cancun, Mexico she has planned for June.

The judge — who presided over last year’s trial of former newspaper baron Conrad Black — plans to interview potential jurors in groups of six, eventually seating 12, along with six alternates, for the estimated three-month trial — Illinois’ biggest political corruption trial since former Gov. George Ryan was convicted of racketeering in 2006 and sent to prison.

Rezko is accused of buying power and influence by bombarding Illinois political leaders with campaign money.

Politicians around the country are watching the trial because Rezko, a 52-year-old Chicago real estate developer, poured cash into the campaigns of Sen. Barack Obama when Obama was getting his political start.

Obama has sent some $85,000 in Rezko-related contributions to charity.

But Rezko pumped even more money into the campaigns of Gov. Blagojevich, and prosecutors say that’s what touched off corruption. ‘‘Rezko parlayed his success in raising significant sums of money for Gov. Blagojevich into power,’’ they said in court papers.

While Blagojevich has been accused of no wrongdoing, the case has plainly put him in an embarrassing spotlight.

Two members of his inner circle are under indictment, and last week St. Eve disclosed Blagojevich is the anonymous ‘‘Public Official A’’ repeatedly tied to corruption in the government’s court papers.

Prosecutors say their first witness will be the former head of the Friends of Rod Blagojevich campaign fund.

The 24-count indictment charges that Rezko plotted with millionaire attorney Stuart Levine to muscle payoffs out of firms seeking state permission to expand hospitals and hoping to invest money for the fund that pays the pensions of downstate and suburban school teachers.

One firm seeking to invest money for the pension fund allegedly was told to hire a consultant it never had heard of for $50,000 and fax the signed contract to a sun-splashed Caribbean tax haven that day, or else.

Levine has pleaded guilty and now shapes up as the star witness.

Rezko’s chief defense counsel, former federal prosecutor Joseph Duffy, is plainly hoping jurors won’t see Levine as a reliable witness. And Levine comes to the stand with some painful baggage.

Witnesses already have said he was a heavy user of drugs, including cocaine, marijuana, crystal methamphetamine and kaetamine, also known as Special K.

Secretaries say they heard snorting sounds coming from Levine’s inner office and saw him with bloody tissues and blood dripping from his nose. A wiretap picked up Levine asking if the caller got ‘‘the stuff.’’ And St. Eve herself disclosed that Levine took drugs at all-night parties.

Rezko has been held in the skyscraper Metropolitan Correctional Center, a block from the courthouse since Jan. 28, when St. Eve ruled he had disobeyed an order to keep her informed about changes in his finances.

She cited a $3.5 million loan that Rezko received from London-based Iraqi billionaire Nadhmi Auchi, who has been his partner in a Chicago real estate development.

Rezko has grumbled about his treatment in custody, saying that he has been forced to share underwear with other inmates and can shave only twice a week. But even if he is acquitted of the charges, there’s only another legal ordeal to look forward to.

Rezko is charged separately before U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel with swindling the General Electric Capital Corp. out of $10 million in connection with the sale of a chain of pizza parlors.