Mr. Inside Out

[Little Star]

Two days before last November's elections, benefactors held a fashion show in the Rosemont convention center to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis. The invitation to the affair offered a veritable guidebook to political influence in Illinois, much of it centered on one St. Jude benefactor, Antoin "Tony" Rezko.

The chair of the event was Rezko's wife, Rita, a member of the Cook County Employee Appeals Board, which hears cases brought by fired or disciplined workers. (She was appointed to the part-time post, which pays $37,000 a year, by John Stroger, the former president of the Cook County Board, whose 2002 campaign finance committee was headed by Tony Rezko.) The fashion show's honorary cochair was Governor Rod Blagojevich's wife, Patti, who owns a real-estate firm (and has been involved in real-estate deals with Tony Rezko dating back to 1997).

The event's sponsoring committee included Governor Blagojevich's former spokeswoman, Cheryle Jackson, who now heads the Chicago Urban League; Becky Ruff Chipparoni, whose husband, Guy Chipparoni, was the press secretary for then secretary of state Jim Edgar before setting up a public-relations firm in Chicago (Chipparoni has represented some of Rezko's businesses); and Hollie Rumman, whose husband, Michael Rumman, served as one of Blagojevich's cabinet members (and is an investor with Rezko in various deals, such as a proposed power plant in Iraq).

Michelle Obama, wife of the Democratic U.S. senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama, was a special guest that day (even though the news had just broken about Rezko's participation in a funky real-estate transaction involving the Obamas' Hyde Park home).






http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2007/Mr-Inside-Out/