Giannoulias admitted to most controversial bank loans

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate David Hoffman cited a New York Times column Sunday morning saying front-runner Alexi Giannoulias needs to answer questions about what loans he approved as vice president and chief loan officer for Broadway Bank from 2002 to 2006. * * * Among the loans Giannoulias has gotten heat for:

* More than $10 million from 2001 to 2005 to alleged Father & Son Russian mobster team Lev and Boris Stratievsky. Father Lev has passed away. Son Boris is in jail facing money-laundering charges. Broadway funded development projects some on the South Side — that tenants and city attorneys complained were roach motels. Broadway has been unable to collect on the loans.

* About $12.9 million to convicted bookmaker Michael Giorango for a Miami Beach hotel and a Hollywood, Fla., restaurant, among other ventures, according to Crain’s Chicago Business. Broadway has sued Giorango and his partner, Demitri Stavropoulos, convicted of running a betting operation in Chicago, seeking to get the money back. Giannoulias initially downplayed his relationship with Giorango, noting the loans to him started before he joined the bank. Later he said he went to Miami to meet Giorango and inspect the property, and that another $3 million loan to Giorango was for a South Carolina casino.

“If I knew then what I know now, obviously we wouldn't have made those loans,” Giannoulias told the Sun-Times regarding the loans to the organized crime-linked recipients.

He got the treasurer job because Obama supported him to pay off the favor of a loan for his origianal property.

Alexi Giannoulias: Not so transparent (Obama’s IL buddy)
Marathon Pundit ^ | 3-31-09

FROM:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2219378/posts?page=2

Just like that window from the Giannoulias family’s Broadway Bank on Chicago’s North Side, sometimes what you think is transparent is in fact not something you can easily see through.

Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, 32, is strongly considering a run for the Senate seat currently held by fellow Democrat Roland Burris.

Giannoulias, who prior to his election was a senior loan officer at the bank, had never voted in an election until his name was on the ballot, announced yesterday that he won’t be accepting campaign donations from corporate political action committees or federal lobbyists.

Big deal. Will Giannoulias forgo donations from union PACs? Or money from his family members, you know, the ones who own Broadway Bank?

About that bank: Almost half of the $7 million Giannoulias raised for his 2006 race came from “the Broadway family.”

And this is not just any bank: Broadway loaned millions to convicted mobster Michael “Jaws” Giorango

) Michael Sneed in her Sun Times column 10/10/08 had the following tidbit: Sneed hears rumbles political fund-raiser/fixer Tony Rezko, who is now singing sweetly to the feds from his cell at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, has been talking about his “dealings” with a Chicago bank, which has political connections.

(2) We just spoke with someone well-connected in Chicago politics who told us that the bank Sneed is talking about has to be Broadway Bank, which is owned by the politically-connected Giannoulias family. We were told that Sneed’s column confirms rumblings people we know heard independently that Tony Rezko is giving up the Giannoulias family to Patrick Fitzgerald — Rezko and the Giannoulias family are as close and tied together as anyone in Chicago could be. If Rezko is turning on them, then Rezko is going to give up Governor Rod Blagojevich and Obama too. We don’t want to end up in cement shoes for implying anything here, but if you live in Chicago for any length of time, you hear rumors about Broadway Bank, the Giannoulias family, and insert Tony Soprano references here. Kapeech?

(3) So, Rezko is singing about the Giannoulias family and its longtime “business dealings” in Chicago, which would interest someone like Fitzgerald and the Justice Department, who have had a long ambition to crack Soprano-style business dealings in Chicago (the city known for Al Capone hasn’t changed much, really). The next plate to drop in this will be Fitzgerald then leaning on the Giannoulias family to give up someone bigger than them, who Fitzgerald once discussed in terms of hoping “he has the morals to do the right thing”, to paraphrase. We now believe that person Fitz was talking about is Barack Obama.

(4) The Giannoulias family was involved with Obama as far back as his first state senate campaign in 1996. It has been long rumored here in Chicago that Obama obtained a sweetheart deal on his first town home here in Chicago — which he could not have afforded otherwise — and guess who the financing came from for that house? We’ve been told it was Broadway Bank, the Giannoulias bank. Now, this sets up a scenario where the Giannoulias family helps Obama with his campaign finances and gets him deeper in their pocket with his sweetheart mortgage deal (for the first home he owned that he could not afford) – all in exchange for quid pro quo to be determined later.

(5) One favor political Chicago claims Obama did for the Giannoulias family was in 2006 when, out of the blue, 29 year old Alexi Giannoulias, with no experience, and without ever having voted before, decides to run for State Treasurer of Illinois. Also out of the blue, Barack Obama endorses Alexi Giannoulias for State Treasurer. This was a SHOCK to everyone in Chicago — and Giannoulias would have never become State Treasurer without Obama’s help. In political circles here, it has always been believed that this endorsement was bought years ago with that sweetheart mortgage deal Broadway Bank arranged for Obama to buy his town house.

Today (or yesterday as it’s passed midnight) one of the also rans in the rat primary gay candidate Jacob Meister quit and endorsed Alexi!.

He allegedly spent a lot of his own money but it’s believed by some that this guy was a stalking horse for Alexi! and was just in to attack Alexi’s other opponents.

The polls show Cheryl Jackson (the “black candidate” though no relation to the Jesses) and Hoffman (says he’s super independent and principled but he’s a product of the Daley machine, lol) are in it. Alexi is well under 50%.

But I expect him to win by a decent plurality. He should clean up downstate due to his name ID.

He’s who we want to run against. If he wins in November he may be indicted in office and forced out.

Amusing but irrelevant, there is a 4th rat candidate who will get 6-10 votes statewide.

http://www.ourcampaigns.com/CandidateDetail.html?CandidateID=4147

This is his first race as a rat, he’s run as a Republican in the past several times. He was the 3rd CD nominee in 1998. And he ran as a libertarian against Rosty in 1990.

He says on his site he voted rat in the 60’s and 70’s and worked for the Obama campaign.

What an oddball.

Everyone is related to Jesse...Even Michelle. Jesse’s name when born was “Robinson”. His biological father is Noah Robinson, who was a married man when his sixteen year old mother got pregnant. He was later adopted by his step father although his father stayed in his life.

He and Michelle Robinson Obama ancestors were from the Friends Plantation Area. Michelle baby sat the “Jackson” children and spent a great deal of time in their home. Enough to be called Sis by the children.

Although she claims not to be related....check the DNA with his step dad, who is technically not related either.

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