Cellini trial juror felonies, John Kass, Failing to order jury background checks is cruel and unusual punishment for taxpayers, Delaying Blagojevich prosecution costlier
“The citizens of Illinois deserve public officials who act solely in the public’s interest, without putting a price tag on government appointments, contracts and decisions.”…Patrick Fitzgerald
“I was not going to wait until March or April or May to get it all nice and tidy” “I think that would be irresponsible.””…Patrick Fitzgerald
“Governor Blagojevich has been arrested in the middle of what we can only describe as a political corruption crime spree. We acted to stop that crime spree.”…Patrick Fitzgerald
“I just think it’s very, very disturbing that we have these pay-to-play allegations going on for years.”…Patrick Fitzgerald
From John Kass of the Chicago Tribune November 16, 2011.
“John Kass: Failing to order jury background checks is cruel and unusual punishment for taxpayers”
“I have an idea for how federal judges who neglect to order background checks of criminal juries can do public penance:
They can wear orange “community service” vests and use sharpened sticks to spear cigarette butts from the sidewalk out in front of the earthy hangouts where judges are known to have lunch.
But first, let me tell you what my friend Deuce and I did the other day. We went looking for that Cellini juror.
The one who apparently lied about her multiple felony convictions — a DUI and possession of crack cocaine — and by doing so may have screwed up Illinois’ most important political corruption case in years: The successful prosecution of a political untouchable, Illinois Republican boss William Cellini, the multimillionaire who spent decades in the shadows, undetected at the center of the Combine’s web.
Out in that juror’s neighborhood, it was getting dark but still bright enough so the man in her apartment could see us and buzz us in. A little boy stood out on the landing, waiting, and then the older gentleman wearing a Chicago Blackhawks jersey came out.
“She’s not here,” said the man in Hawks colors. His cellphone started to ring, and Deuce asked for his number.
“No,” he said. “I don’t roll like that.”
It was dinnertime. I figured she was behind that door. Just then the boy stepped back out. He said something about the Cellini juror who is believed to have hidden her felony convictions.
“She’s afraid,” he said.
She has nothing to be afraid of, I lied. Don’t worry, I told him. Then we left.
Actually, she has reason to be afraid. Perjury is a federal offense, punishable by prison. And she’s made some important people look awfully foolish.
She may have cost prosecutors and taxpayers an important conviction, and the expense of an extra trial.
I was in the courtroom the day the juror was questioned by U.S. District Judge James Zagel. She said something about a male relative who had been arrested, but she told Zagel that she felt she could come to an impartial verdict.
Now Cellini’s attorney, Dan Webb, is demanding the guilty verdict be overturned. Webb will use the issue to appeal in the hopes of keeping Cellini out of prison for the next several years.
Cellini is the whole ballgame. He’s bigger than convicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, more important, with greater reach. Now the Cellini case has been compromised because of one juror. But not without help from Judge Zagel.”
“In an earlier high-profile case, he promised to check the backgrounds of jurors. But in the Cellini trial — a “heater” trial if there ever was one — it looks as if that didn’t happen.
He should have known better. During the corruption trial of former Gov. George Ryan in 2006, the Tribune checked the jurors’ backgrounds and found that two had concealed criminal convictions. They were dismissed. One was a holdout for Ryan.
But in Blagojevich’s first trial, Zagel turned down requests of news organizations, including the Tribune, for the names of jurors. The public wasn’t invited to know. Zagel said he understood the problems raised by the Tribune in the Ryan case but told everyone not to worry.
“The information-gathering process used by the Tribune (is) now automatically applied to jurors in high-profile cases,” he said.
Yet it appears that background checks weren’t done in the Cellini case, as Zagel had indicated they would be. After the trial, it didn’t take a Tribune reporter long to find the Cellini juror’s felony convictions.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-1116-20111116,0,3759608.column
Mr. Kass, I would add:
Failing to prosecute Rod Blagojevich earlier and Barack Obama at all, has cost the citizens of Illinois and the US an enormous price .
Citizen WElls 
Kass neglects to mention that this jurist checked off “YES” on the application when asked about a DUI…Judge Zagle should have dismissed her immediately…Putting the blame on this jurist is irresponsible, a drug user without representation should not be held responsibe because a vetren Judge didn’t do his job…Where was the prosecutor??? WHY didn’t insure background checks were in place…This was their party and not thier first.
Bessie.
Amen.
I wonder if John Kass is any relation to the John Kass I worked with at Clark Equipment in Chicago in the early seventies?
Bessie | November 16, 2011 at 10:03 am |
Putting the blame on this jurist is irresponsible, a drug user without representation should not be held responsibe because a vetren Judge didn’t do his job…Where was the prosecutor??? WHY didn’t insure background checks were in place…This was their party and not thier first.
There were no background checks because they all, were out to protect Cellini, in multiple ways. They didn’t want to know the background, because they already knew she was ineligible. Plausible deny ability, that’s why she was planted on the jury. Cellini will stay out of jail indefinitely, awaiting trial after trial.
Seems funny OB would call Americans lazy when he spends so much time away from his own job either vacationing, golfing or campaigning.
Bob Strauss…………………….
Nothing quite like “STACKING THE DECK”,then using the STACKED DECK TO OVERTURN A CONVICTION. I would say that sort of BULLSH#T is straight out of the Democratic playbook.
a bit off topic but nonetheless important…………
Political Vel Craft suggests that Sheriffs everywhere are preparing to invade DC. I am hopeful that everyone sees this as NOT THE CASE. No Sheriff in his right mind would act without the necessary court order in hand. His jurisdiction ends at his respective COUNTY LINE. If the POTUS was to venture into a county,and the sheriff held a duly authorised warrant for the arrest of Soetoro, then he would have the power to execute the arrest. Soetoro could be arrested and held for 24 hours on suspicion of perpetrating criminal wrongdoing,but after 24hours if the sheriff has nothing to charge the alleged perpetrator with the alleged perpetrator MUST BE RELEASED. Same applies to the POTUS.
Tina that’s like “the pot calling the kettle black”…pun intended.
Why don’t the OCCUPY protestors go to Washington and shut down this “do nothing” Congress…..I would join that group….
isn’t it time these idiots recognize where the base of their problems lie and exactly who caused the problems they are so upset over in the first place.
O/T Just had to put this one up…Got it in an Email…Too cute!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCnAjel02lM
“OBAMA’S HALF-BILLION DOLLAR CRONY DRUG DEAL”
“MOVE OVER, SOLYNDRA. HERE COMES SIGA-GATE”
By Michelle Malkin
November 16, 2011
Excerpt:
“What do you get when you mix Democratic fat-cat donations, Big Labor favors, pharmaceutical lobbying and Beltway business as usual? Answer: another toxic half-billion-dollar Barack Obama-approved crony deal. Move over, Solyndra. Here comes Siga-Gate.”
“This latest Chicago-style payoff on your dime involves a dubious smallpox drug backed by a liberal billionaire investor, along with a former union boss who was one of the White House’s most frequent visitors. Ronald Perelman is the New York City-based leveraged buyout wheeler-dealer who controls Siga Technologies. He has donated nearly $130,000 mostly to Democrats over the past two election cycles alone, and he forked over $50,000 to pay for the president’s lavish inaugural parties. A Siga affiliate pitched in nearly half a million more in contributions — 65 percent of which went to Democrats — and the firms have spent millions on lobbying.
Perelman’s pharma company makes an experimental antiviral pill used by smallpox patients who received diagnoses too late to be treated with the existing smallpox vaccine. Smallpox experts cast doubt on the need for the drug given ample vaccine stockpiles, the remoteness of a mass attack and questions about its efficacy. But over the objections of federal contract negotiators, competitors and scientists, the Obama administration approved a lucrative $433 million no-bid deal for Siga in May. No other manufacturers were able to compete for the “sole source” procurement, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The special arrangement was made after a competitor objected to the administration’s violating small-business rules during a first call for bids. That’s right: It’s yet another rigged giveaway from a Hope-and-Change champion who vowed on the 2008 campaign trail to “end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all.”
Intensifying the culture-of-corruption stench: the critical role of Andy Stern. He’s the profligate, corruption-coddling former head of the powerful Service Employees International Union — the 2.2 million-member public-employee union powerhouse that he left in April 2010 with a mountain of debt and eroding rank-and-file pensions.
After pouring some $60 million of workers’ dues into Democratic coffers, Stern was rewarded by Obama with a cozy spot on the White House deficit panel and dozens of visits to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — including at least seven with the president, one with Vice President Joe Biden, and meetings with Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain, OMB Director Peter Orszag, health czar aide Jennifer Cannistra and Valerie Jarrett’s former high-powered aide and Chicago fundraiser Tina Tchen.
In a classic access-buying maneuver, Siga placed Stern on its board of directors in June 2010. Four months later, Siga nabbed an estimated $3 billion contract. By January of this year, Siga’s stock had skyrocketed. The House GOP has been investigating the deal for months, which comes amid separate allegations of insider trading and political profiteering by investigative journalist Peter Schweizer.
Stern and Perelman have been scratching each other’s backs for years. In the fall of 2006, the SEIU backed off organizing protests against AlliedBarton, a security guard firm in Philadelphia owned by a Perelman interest — and then remained quiet when the firm was bought out by a longtime SEIU nemesis, the Blackstone Group.”
Read More Here: http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2011/11/16/obamas_half-billion-dollar_crony_drug_deal/page/full/
OBAMA’S HALF-BILLION DOLLAR CRONY DRUG DEAL”
“MOVE OVER, SOLYNDRA. HERE COMES SIGA-GATE”
By Michelle Malkin
November 16, 2011
Excerpt:
“After pouring some $60 million of workers’ dues into Democratic coffers, Stern was rewarded by Obama with a cozy spot on the White
House deficit panel and dozens of visits to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — including at least seven with the president, one with Vice President Joe Biden, and meetings with Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain, OMB Director Peter Orszag, health czar aide Jennifer Cannistra and Valerie Jarrett’s former high-powered aide and Chicago fundraiser Tina Tchen.
In a classic access-buying maneuver, Siga placed Stern on its board of directors in June 2010. Four months later, Siga nabbed an estimated $3 billion contract. By January of this year, Siga’s stock had skyrocketed. The House GOP has been investigating the deal for months, which comes amid separate allegations of insider trading and political profiteering by investigative journalist Peter Schweizer.
Stern and Perelman have been scratching each other’s backs for years. In the fall of 2006, the SEIU backed off organizing protests against AlliedBarton, a security guard firm in Philadelphia owned by a Perelman interest — and then remained quiet when the firm was bought out by a longtime SEIU nemesis, the Blackstone Group.
According to the L.A. Times, which exposed the scandal over the weekend, Obama’s top biodefense bureaucrat Nicole Lurie railroaded a key dissenter at the Department of Health and Human Services who ridiculed Siga’s inflated projected profit margins. Lurie soothingly reassured a whiny Siga executive that the “most senior procurement official” would take over and mollified him in a letter: “I trust this will be satisfactory to you.”
Lurie falsely told the newspaper that she had never made contact with the official regarding the contract and deemed any such contact improper. When caught with documentation, her department spun the communication with Siga as a “national security” matter. Lurie, it should be noted, is a former Clintonite and Howard Dean health care consultant who was most recently in the headlines for pushing anthrax vaccine testing for children. According to the Labor Union Report, there have been market murmurs of a merger between Siga and the anthrax vaccine manufacturer, PharmAthene. Hard to trust Lurie’s public health moral authority with the taint of pay-for-play wafting over the Siga deal.
As always, venture socialism backed by Big Labor muscle and White House wealth redistribution is hazardous to taxpayers’ health.”
Michelle Malkin is the author of “Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies” (Regnery 2010).
“OBAMA’S HALF-BILLION DOLLAR CRONY DRUG DEAL”
“MOVE OVER, SOLYNDRA. HERE COMES SIGA-GATE”
By Michelle Malkin
November 16, 2011
Excerpt:
“After pouring some $60 million of workers’ dues into Democratic coffers, Stern was rewarded by Obama with a cozy spot on the White House deficit panel and dozens of visits to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue — including at least seven with the president, one with Vice President Joe Biden, and meetings with Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Biden Chief of Staff Ron Klain, OMB Director Peter Orszag, health czar aide Jennifer Cannistra and Valerie Jarrett’s former high-powered aide and Chicago fundraiser Tina Tchen.
In a classic access-buying maneuver, Siga placed Stern on its board of directors in June 2010. Four months later, Siga nabbed an estimated $3 billion contract. By January of this year, Siga’s stock had skyrocketed. The House GOP has been investigating the deal for months, which comes amid separate allegations of insider trading and political profiteering by investigative journalist Peter Schweizer.
Stern and Perelman have been scratching each other’s backs for years. In the fall of 2006, the SEIU backed off organizing protests against AlliedBarton, a security guard firm in Philadelphia owned by a Perelman interest — and then remained quiet when the firm was bought out by a longtime SEIU nemesis, the Blackstone Group.
According to the L.A. Times, which exposed the scandal over the weekend, Obama’s top biodefense bureaucrat Nicole Lurie railroaded a key dissenter at the Department of Health and Human Services who ridiculed Siga’s inflated projected profit margins. Lurie soothingly reassured a whiny Siga executive that the “most senior procurement official” would take over and mollified him in a letter: “I trust this will be satisfactory to you.”
Lurie falsely told the newspaper that she had never made contact with the official regarding the contract and deemed any such contact improper. When caught with documentation, her department spun the communication with Siga as a “national security” matter. Lurie, it should be noted, is a former Clintonite and Howard Dean health care consultant who was most recently in the headlines for pushing anthrax vaccine testing for children. According to the Labor Union Report, there have been market murmurs of a merger between Siga and the anthrax vaccine manufacturer, PharmAthene. Hard to trust Lurie’s public health moral authority with the taint of pay-for-play wafting over the Siga deal.
As always, venture socialism backed by Big Labor muscle and White House wealth redistribution is hazardous to taxpayers’ health.”
Michelle Malkin is the author of “Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies” (Regnery 2010).
More Here: http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2011/11/16/obamas_half-billion-dollar_crony_drug_deal/page/full/