Former business partner of Tony Rezko gets probation

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

A businessman who stole more than $500,000 from his dying mother to help his drug addicted son was spared prison Thursday by a sympathetic federal judge who said he might have done the same thing.

Daniel Mahru — the former business partner of real estate mogul and political fundraiser Tony Rezko — was instead sentenced to three years of probation by U.S. District Judge Robert Dow.

Mahru helped the feds convict both Rezko and former Illinois Finance Agency chief Ali Ata after prosecutors learned in 2005 that he’d taken money from his mother while she suffered from dementia.

His sentencing on Thursday after nearly a decade tied up the last loose thread connected to a series of public corruption cases that eventually brought down former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

No word yet from Barack Obama on this story, who knew Daniel Mahru.