Alexi Giannoulias Slammed in Chicago Tribune Editorial About Loans To Mafia Figures

The Chicago Tribune has a damning editorial on Barack Obama's basketball buddy:

After Sunday's "Meet the Press" debate with Rep. Mark Kirk, Alexi Giannoulias' campaign put out a batch of things their candidate said, under the title, "10 Quotes, 10 Reasons to Vote for Alexi." Here's a quote that was not included: "I didn't know the extent of their activity."

Giannoulias was responding to a question from NBC's David Gregory about his bank's loans to organized crime figures back when he was a loan officer at the family business. As the Tribune reported in April, Broadway Bank had lent millions of dollars to Michael "Jaws" Giorango and his business partner Demitri Stavropoulos by the time Giannoulias arrived at the institution. During his time as a loan officer, the bank kept giving them loans — even when they were about to go to federal prison on felony convictions.

Confronted with these embarrassing facts, the candidate has squirmed to put the best face on them. "If I knew then what I know now, these are not the kind of people that we do business with," he said Sunday. But when Gregory asked, "Did you know that they were crime figures that you were loaning to?", Giannoulias couldn't fudge his way to safety. "I didn't know the extent of their activity," he said.

Is Alexi Giannoulias now or ever been an associate of organized crime?