With Blago in the news,it's time to look at his good friend from childhood,Dan Stefanski.When Blagojevich came to power,he remembered his good friend by appointing him to a high paying job.
The AP from March 9, 2006:
A top-ranking official in the state Department of Transportation and childhood friend of Gov. Rod Blagojevich is out of a job less than a month after he was arrested for drunken driving, officials said Thursday.
Dan Stefanski was ``informed his services were no longer needed'' in his role as a special assistant to Transportation Secretary Tim Martin last week, department spokesman Matt Vanover said.
In November Stefanski, 48, went on disability leave that was not related to his job, Vanover said.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported Thursday that Stefanski was fired after IDOT officials found out he was arrested Feb. 11 for drunken driving.
An IDOT official, who would only speak on condition of anonymity because of the department's policy on such information, confirmed to The Associated Press Thursday that the February arrest prompted agency officials to force Stefanski out of his job last week.
A public telephone listing for Stefanski's home in Mundelein could not be found. Stefanski's lawyer did not immediately return a call Thursday seeking comment.
Mundelein Deputy Police Chief Mike O'Brien said an officer pulled Stefanski over about 5 p.m. on Feb. 11 after seeing him pull into an oncoming traffic lane to make a left turn on a busy four-lane highway in suburban Chicago.
The officer found Stefanski driving with an open container of vodka and with two 14-year-olds and a 7-year-old, two of them were his children, O'Brien said. Stefanski was charged with endangering the life or health of a child, felony DUI and driving on a suspended or revoked license among other offenses.
Stefanski also was charged in McHenry County with drunken driving, resisting arrest and other offenses stemming from an arrest there last April, McHenry County court officials said.
Stefanski started working with the state in April 2003, four months after Blagojevich took office.
He earned $105,000 a year in his special assistant role, which Vanover said involved overseeing highway maintenance workers. Vanover said Stefanski was uniquely qualified for the job given his lengthy career as a top official with the Teamsters union.
Stefanski's name surfaced in a Sun-Times report last April that he allegedly had ties to organized crime. According to the newspaper, a Teamsters Union anti-corruption investigators report contained allegations that Stefanski had ties to reputed organized crime figures and once was a bookie.
Stefanski is one class guy,how many people do you know get a DUI with their children in the car? Here's what the
The Chicago Sun-Times had to say on April 25,2005:
A former union leader who was hired for a six-figure-salary state job by his boyhood friend, Gov. Blagojevich, has ties to reputed organized crime figures and once was a bookie, informants have told Teamsters Union anti-corruption investigators.
Daniel E. Stefanski ran Teamsters Local 726, representing hundreds of city truck drivers, from the mid-1990s until landing a top job with the Illinois Department of Transportation in April 2003, several months after Blagojevich took office.
A report authored by the anti-corruption unit last year -- and recently obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times -- contains allegations that Stefanski:
**Lunched a few times a year with mob bookie Nick "The Stick" LoCoco.
LoCoco was a onetime Local 726 member and city transportation foreman who was suspected of taking bribes from Teamsters wanting full-time city employment or plum assignments. LoCoco died late last year after falling from a horse.
**Worked in an illegal bookmaking operation in the late 1980s with Robert Abbinanti, described as a "close friend." Abbinanti, once active in Local 726, was identified by the Chicago Crime Commission as a reputed mobster.
The report hinges the bookmaking allegation on mob attorney- turned-government informant Robert Cooley. The report said former law enforcement officials corroborated that the men were friends.
**Met at least two or three times with former Laborers union boss Bruno Caruso after Caruso was ousted for alleged mob ties.
**While in a tavern, offered a $20,000 reward to anyone who could provide the address of a mob informant whom the Outfit reportedly wants dead.
**Maintained "close ties" to the Coalition for Better Government, a controversial political fund-raising group that once was run by ex- con John "Quarters" Boyle. Boyle is described in the Teamsters report as a mob "associate," a characterization his lawyer disputes.
Not only is Dan Stefanski friends with Blagojevich,he been associating with some rather interesting people.John Harris,who was Blagojevich's chief of staff, who was arrested the other day was involved with Mayor Daley's
Hired Truck program.This is the world of Chicago politics.
