The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
Federal prosecutors lodged money laundering charges today against former Gov. Blagojevich adviser and fund-raiser Christopher Kelly.
In a sign the government continues to squeeze the onetime friend of the governor, the charges come just weeks after Kelly pleaded guilty to federal tax charges.
Under the new charges, Kelly is accused of paying $450,000 in kickbacks to a consultant in a scheme to fraudulently obtain approximately $8.5 million in inflated contracts for projects involving the two largest airlines at O’Hare International Airport, federal authorities said.
Eric Holder
sure knows who Chris Kelly(Blago's point man on gambling) is.Here's more on Chris Kelly from a 2004
Chicago Sun-Times article:
Gov. Blagojevich's gambling point man last year quietly held stock in a firm co-owned by an Emerald Casino investor who stood to gain from the administration's effort to get Emerald's dormant gaming license running.
Christopher G. Kelly also has business ties with Blagojevich fund-raiser Tony Rezko, who until March 2003 held an option to lease a Rosemont-owned hotel site that's across the street from where Emerald's casino was supposed to go.
Kelly's business dealings with both Rezko and Emerald investor Andrew Cherng came to light for the first time in disclosures that Kelly was forced to make this month under a new state ethics law.
The interest Kelly maintains in a group of more than 80 Midwestern Panda Express Chinese restaurants, a venture headed up by Cherng and Rezko, raises troubling new questions about possible double-dealing by Kelly -- charges that Kelly denied.
It also arms Blagojevich's rivals with fresh ammunition to attack his credentials as a reform governor as talks are under way in the Legislature to bring more gambling to Illinois.
Can Eric Holder be objective when it comes to the question of Chris Kelly?
