Fundraiser Rezko Quoted As Wanting Bribe: 'You Bet!'

CHICAGO (AP) -- An admitted fixer turned government witness testified Thursday that he got political fundraiser Antoin ``Tony'' Rezko to do an about face and back an $81 million hospital construction project by dangling a $1.5 million bribe and campaign money for the governor.

Millionaire attorney Stuart Levine, the government's star witness at Rezko's fraud trial, also was heard on an FBI tape recording telling a corrupt contractor that Rezko had powerful influence over Gov. Rod Blagojevich and ``can get anything done he wants done.''

Levine testified that in early 2003, Rezko opposed Mercy Health System's plan to build the $81 million hospital in McHenry County's Crystal Lake.

Prosecutors allege that could have been fatal to the plan because Rezko, a major fundraiser for Blagojevich and Sen. Barack Obama, controlled the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, which had life-or-death power over such projects.

Levine, who was a member of the planning board, said Rezko's turnabout came at a meeting in Rezko's office.

``I said, 'Would it make a difference if you and I could make a lot of money if Mercy got its CON?'' Levine testified Thursday, referring to the ``certificate of need'' the board must issue before any new hospital construction is launched in Illinois.

``'You bet!' or words to that effect,'' Levine quoted Rezko as saying.

Levine said also dangled the possibility that contractor Jacob Kiferbaum, who already had paid him a pair of $1 million bribes for unrelated matters and figured to build the Crystal Lake hospital, also would be willing to contribute generously to Blagojevich's campaign fund.

Kiferbaum has pleaded guilty in the case. Blagojevich has not been charged with wrongdoing.

A week before the planning board meeting at which the Mercy project was pushed through, Levine said Thursday, he met

Rezko for dinner at the Standard Club in downtown Chicago and again brought up the subject.

``I described how the bribe would be split,'' Levine testified. ``One half for Mr. Rezko and one half for me.''

Levine said he still hadn't finalized the specifics with Kiferbaum.

``He (Kiferbaum) had already agreed it would be between $1 million and $1.5 million and I told Mr. Rezko at the meeting it would be $1.5 million,'' Levine testified.

The project was approved a week later with the bare minimum five votes needed, all from board members who had been sponsored for their seats by Rezko.

But Rezko's attorneys say he never ordered anybody to approve the hospital project and he never agreed to accept a bribe. They say Levine's memory is unreliable because he was a heavy drug user at the time.

Prosecutors also played a recording of Levine on the telephone with Kiferbaum as they plotted to get even more payoff money by getting board approval for a different project, Edward Hospital, in Naperville.

On the recording, made from a court-ordered wiretap on Levine's phone, Levine boasts to Kiferbaum there is no way they can be tied to corruption.

``We will be so protected that you can't imagine,'' Levine says.

Levine and Kiferbaum had just staged a ruse to encourage an Edward Hospital administrator to hire Kiferbaum with the belief he could somehow use his influence with the board to get the project approved.

Kiferbaum had met the administrator for coffee at a suburban restaurant and Levine had arranged to bump into them, seemingly by accident. The idea was to show Kiferbaum was close to Levine, a board member, Levine testified.

On the recording, Levine boasts that he has been well placed to engage in corrupt, moneymaking activities through his position on the board.

``I have never been in a better position than I am right now,'' Levine is heard saying on the FBI recording. ``Maybe it's because there has never been tighter control of the central apparatus. I mean, this guy is making decisions.''

In answer to questions from Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher S. Niewoehner, Levine testified that the one making the decisions was Rezko and by ``central apparatus'' he meant the governor's office.

``I had never been close to someone who could influence the governor the way I saw Mr. Rezko could,'' Levine testified.

A Blagojevich spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

While Rezko's fundraising for Obama has been briefly mentioned in the trial, the charges against him have little, if anything, to do with the presidential contender, who has been accused of no wrongdoing.

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