Who would give Rod Blagojevich $617,643?
The answer is, 241 donations did. And, apparently, no one gave after November 25.
One of the subpoenas issued by the House Special Investigative Committee on impeachment was to the Friends of Blagojevich campaign fund seeking the names, dates, and amounts of donations to the fund between July 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008. Astute readers will recognize those dates as the start and end of the Semi-Annual Disclosure Period for the second half of 2008. State law requires that those donations be reported by January 20 (next Tuesday) but the subpoena trumped state law.
Friends of Blagojevich, through their lawyers at Hinshaw and Culberston, responded to the subpoena, and the Special Investigative Committee has posted the reply to their website. The response is just what was asked for -- names, amounts, and dates, without addresses, occupation, or employer. It also seems likely that it does not include in-kind donations.
But it does include some big donations, including a bunch from state contractors (natch), $34,000 from the laborers, and $50,000 from "Dream World Inc." All told, it adds up to $617K. The report is available here (PDF).
Give it a good read and post if you see anything interesting!
One of the subpoenas issued by the House Special Investigative Committee on impeachment was to the Friends of Blagojevich campaign fund seeking the names, dates, and amounts of donations to the fund between July 1, 2008 and December 31, 2008. Astute readers will recognize those dates as the start and end of the Semi-Annual Disclosure Period for the second half of 2008. State law requires that those donations be reported by January 20 (next Tuesday) but the subpoena trumped state law.
Friends of Blagojevich, through their lawyers at Hinshaw and Culberston, responded to the subpoena, and the Special Investigative Committee has posted the reply to their website. The response is just what was asked for -- names, amounts, and dates, without addresses, occupation, or employer. It also seems likely that it does not include in-kind donations.
But it does include some big donations, including a bunch from state contractors (natch), $34,000 from the laborers, and $50,000 from "Dream World Inc." All told, it adds up to $617K. The report is available here (PDF).
Give it a good read and post if you see anything interesting!
Labels: Gov. Blagojevich, Impeachment
posted by David at 2:37 PM
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9 Comments:
There is a $10,000 contribution from the Stough Group, which is owned by Michael Pizzato, who was appointed to the SURS Board of Trustees in 2004. He comes up for re-appointment 6/30/09. Was he asked for an early downpayment????
First of all if I was Culbertson, I would ask for a redesign of my letterhead.
There were 2 contributions for $50,000 each from Dream World. The only Dream World Inc. I could find was in Niles, IL and had total revenue of $450,000. Hummmm
A little more googling of Dream World turned up its president, Jhin Scott, who paid 1.2 million for a house in Lake Forest in 2004, and this story about the business http://www.otcbeautymagazine.com/Images/PDF/January08/Industry_Dallas.pdf
and this page of additional articles about the merged beauty supply companies. http://www.jinny.com/news.htm
Maybe this help someone else do some more digging.
I posted this on Capitol Fax:
Doing a little searching. Dream World, Inc., is an “FDA-Registered Company” according to Zapconnect. The president of Dream World, Inc., is Scott Jhin according to the Secretary of State database.
Also, one Scott Jhin is in charge of the Chicago facility of Jinny Corp., in Niles, which is owned by his mother. Jinny appears to be a hair care and beauty wholesaler. I can’t imagine they’d be lobbying for Rod’s hairspray business to the tune of $50,000.
Ah, I see from the January 08 article Ann posted, Jinny was formerly at 3505 North Kimball in Chicago, which appears to be a light industrial/commercial type neighborhood. That would lead me to conclude Dream World was lobbying for some kind of real estate deal. Makes more sense than hairspray, anyway.
There are also frequently tensions between Korean beauty supply companies and their African-American competitors and customers. There was a good article about this, mentioning Jinny, in last May's Ebony. http://www.ebonyjet.com/EBONY/KoreanHair.pdf In addition to any real estate goodies that may have come with the new facility in Niles, one wonders if there were any regulatory issues at stake.
I don't see any evidence that this is a family that were regular big-time political contributors, but again, I haven't looked far.
Jinny Beauty Supply gave the following to Friends of Blagojevich:
$20,000.00 on 6/19/2001
$5,000.00 on 11/21/2005
$50,000.00 on 11/2/2006
Dream World gave the following to Friends of Blagojevich:
$5,000.00 on 11/21/2005
$50,000.00 on 5/16/2008
So, adding the above Jinny and Dream World with the $50,000 on the subpoena gives us $180,000.00. That's a lot.
Dream world also gave sums to Citizens for Jerry Orbach ($1,000 in 2003) and Citizens for Giannoulias ($1,600 in 2006).
I wish CMS's databases were searchable from the Internet.
"Pizzato" is actually "Pizzuto." Close enough. He's Cellini's guy; used to work for him and took his place in the Waukegan casino bid.
Pizzuto was one of the Rezko-linked trustees appointed by Blago to SURS at the time Rezko et al were scheming to take control of all the pension boards.
Isn't it a co-inky-dink that the same guy contributed to Alexi, who now wants to do the same thing with the pensions?
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