Chicago politics gets new conspiracy

Why, oh why, do I suspect that the death of Christopher Kelly will never be resolved to the satisfaction of the people whose determination in life is to see Rod Blagojevich get attacked in prison?

Because the way this particular police investigation has stumbled out of the block makes me think that there will be plenty of questions for people to dispute whatever findings are eventually reached.

KELLY IS THE one-time political fundraiser who, in the course of federal investigators looking for dirt on Blagojevich, got caught in some irregularities of tax law. He received a prison term earlier this summer of just over three years, was facing more criminal charges and was expected to have to start serving his time soon.

But now, his corpse has been picked over by the Cook County medical examiner’s office, which on Sunday could not come up with a definitive cause of death. More tests will have to be done.

There is circumstantial evidence to indicate this may be a suicide. If so, then it could be sad that Kelly (who was only 51) decided that death was preferable to having to do time in a federal prison. That isn’t an unheard of choice, and I’m sure it will happen many times in the future.

Of course, those future people likely won’t have a connection to someone with the notoriety of Blagojevich. So they won’t have every move of the resulting investigation coming under incredible scrutiny.

THAT SCRUTINY HAS already created comical images – such as the sight of a mayor holding up the driver’s license of a woman who reportedly was Kelly’s girlfriend (yes, he was married to someone else) as though he can somehow expose her to the public – a scarlet “A” and all.

What makes this one a little intriguing is that the girlfriend lives in suburban Country Club Hills. So this one doesn’t involve the Chicago Police Department. Richard M. Daley will be spared any ridicule for police ineptitude over this one.

We got to see Country Club Hills Mayor Dwight Welch holding up the license, while also denouncing the woman because her reaction to learning that the police wanted to talk to her was to get an attorney.

Which is probably smart. Because since there is a chance she was with him in his final hours of life, she’s likely going to be asked specific questions. The slightest slipup could result in a criminal charge.

BUT AS WELCH – the man who previously was known for being the lone public official who thinks a riverboat casino in Country Club Hills would make sense despite the lack of a nearby river – described it, she is now, “lawyering up.”

How dare she try to look out for her rights! Of course, some “conspiracy theory” types find it suspicious that her attorney was once one of Blagojevich’s attorneys.

Now I’m sure police in Country Club Hills would like to wrap this up as quickly as possible. They’d rather go back to being the town whose name makes it sound more impressive than it really is.

Having this crime with its political implications lingering over the town could cause a smear on the public image – even though throughout the years Country Club Hills has had a population of people who never would be admitted to any real-life country club.

THIS ONE WILL linger in large part because there already is speculation bopping about the Internet that this was somehow NOT a suicide. This was a “murder” done for political cover to keep Kelly quiet and prevent other political people from being taken down by federal prosecutors.

Not that anybody has any evidence of such a view. In fact, I feel downright ridiculous for having typed out such an over-the-top sentence. But anything that gets the name “Blagojevich” tagged to it these days is going to bring out the over-the-top reactions in some people.

There are those who are quick to bash Blagojevich himself for releasing a public statement upon learning of Kelly’s death. The fact that the statement expressed condolence and sympathy to Kelly’s family doesn’t matter. How dare Blagojevich express concern for somebody else!

There also are those who want to denounce Kelly as some sort of coward for having the unmitigated gall to die before serving a prison term. That just strikes me as grotesque – and anybody who has the nerve to think such a thing is diminished as a human being in my eyes.

IN FACT, IT is more disgusting than the one offbeat tidbit that came from the Country Club Hills police about how they are handling this investigation.

It turns out that the girlfriend found Kelly at a local lumber yard where he had vomited – which is what caused her to take him to an area hospital from which he eventually was transferred to Stroger Hospital in Chicago, where he was pronounced dead Saturday morning.

Police investigators went to the lumberyard to see if they could get any samples of Kelly’s vomit so as to provide additional evidence of what he might have had in his system at the time he became ill.

Yuck!

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EDITOR’S NOTES: I haven’t changed my mind significantly about the overall safety of society (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2009/06/rat-race-begins.html) without Christopher Kelly.

The death of Kelly (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/us/13kelly.html?_r=1) has become a part of “All the News that’s Fit to Print.” And on the local front, Dwight Welch (http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/09/mayor-kellys-girlfriend-is-lawyered-up-not-talking.html) gets his moment of attention.

The rat race begins

Who among us would care in the least about Christopher Kelly if not for his association with this man?

The Blagojevich-bashers among us (you people know who you are) must have been incredibly ecstatic on Monday. Somebody associated with the now-former governor was sent to prison.

I can only imagine the countdown that begins toward the day that Milorod himself gets sentenced to a prison term.

ADMITTEDLY, MONDAY’S MOMENT wasn’t directly related to the wrongdoing that Blagojevich faces criminal charges for – there’s nothing about replacing Barack Obama in the U.S. Senate with the highest bidder.

Nobody tried to shake down the Chicago Tribune. None of those activities in which Blagojevich is alleged to have engaged came up.

But Christopher Kelly was a fundraiser for Blagojevich. He was one of the people who helped produce all that campaign cash that enabled Blagojevich to be competitive against Republican Jim Ryan in 2002 – and totally bury ’06 opponent Judy Baar Topinka in a mound of absurd campaign spots.

How else to explain the fact that she got annihilated in that election cycle for being seen dancing badly with former Gov. George Ryan?

KELLY PLEADED GUILTY to his offense – tax fraud – and on Monday was sentenced in U.S. District Court to a prison term of just over three years (37 months, to be exact – he could have received a four-year term maximum).

Federal prosecutors say Kelly was one of those people who enjoyed Las Vegas action a bit too much and wound up losing money. To cover his losses, prosecutors say he tried to use funds from his business.

More specifically, they say he under-reported the profits from his roofing company by about $500,000 over a four-year time period so that he could have spare cash to pay his gambling debts.

Personally, I don’t think a business executive who tampers with his company’s books is all that interesting. But there is the fact that he was a Blagojevich supporter.

AND WE ALL know that some people are desperate to believe anybody tainted by association with Blagojevich deserves severe punishment. Why else are there are whole slew of people appointed during the Blagojevich gubernatorial term who now are the focus of a Legislature attempt to fire them all.

It’s so bad that I saw a low-level state official at a recent gathering of the Chicago Southland Chamber of Commerce who felt compelled to apologize for the fact that he was a Blagojevich appointee – before going forward to explain the specific situation for which he was brought before the group to speak.

So Kelly’s prison term, which technically is for activity that had nothing to do with the operations of state government, got significant attention on Monday.

It is going to be like this all through the upcoming months, as official after official who had a Blagojevich association decides that a “guilty” plea and a few months to a couple of years in a federal prison (likely minimum-security) is preferable to an ongoing legal ordeal that links their name more tightly with Blagojevich than they are comfortable.

THESE OFFICIALS WILL build up to people who were closer and closer to Blagojevich, until the day comes when it will be the former governor himself sitting at the defendant’s table in a federal courtroom.

Then, the people who felt some glee on Monday will be downright ecstatic – the concept of Blagojevich himself in prison will be so close they will practically be able to taste it. The sick jokes will really be bouncing all over the place by that point (which I suspect could come some time around October or November of 2010 – literally right around Election Day).

There’s just a couple of points I’d like to make about this whole situation – and anyone who read my commentary back during the impeachment proceedings knows that I think the most vociferous Blagojevich critics are over-reacting and likely need to take a sedative or two.

I’m not all that interested in hearing about a whole batch of officials who, one by one, get sent away to prison for a stretch. Personally, I’m inclined to think the fact that they endured Blagojevich’s erratic personality was a pretty severe punishment, in and of itself.

BUT WHEN TRYING to figure out how much these people were part of some overall conspiracy to defraud the people of Illinois, I’d have to say that the impression I have developed thus far was of an administration where the chief executive was erratic and often ignored the advice of his so-called top advisers.

Prosecutors like to start at the bottom when they suspect a criminal plot, figuring that the first few people who get caught are the ones who truly aren’t that involved. But they provide an initial building block toward a pyramid of “criminal” behavior. The point at the top (in this case, Milorod himself) is the focus that they hope to use the rest of the pyramid to crush him with.

But this might very well be the case where the tip is about the only point worth paying attention to. “Get” Blagojevich, if you feel you must. The rest of the mess doesn’t intrigue me much.

Somehow, I don’t feel like the streets are safer or that society as a whole is all that better off, just because Christopher Kelly’s scam to cover his gambling debts was exposed during the G-men’s attempt to get the governor.

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