[2] After graduating from college there, Rezko moved to Chicago and earned undergraduate and master's degrees in civil engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology in the late 1970s.
Muhammad's company, Crucial Concessions, hired Rezko in 1984 and won a food contract on Lake Michigan beaches and in many Chicago South Side parks.
Between 1989 and 1998, Rezmar rehabilitated 30 buildings, a total of 1,025 apartments, spending more than $100 million from the city, state and federal governments and bank loans.
Rezko and Mahru weren't responsible for any government or bank loans or the $50 million in federal tax credits they got to rehab the buildings.
Rezmar put just $100 into each project and got a 1% stake as the general partner in charge of hiring the architect, contractor, and the company that would manage the buildings.
In October 2006, Rezko was indicted along with businessman Stuart Levine on charges of wire fraud, bribery, money laundering, and attempted extortion as a result of a federal investigation known as "Operation Board Games.
Rezko pleaded not guilty, and the trial related to his charges from Operation Board Games began on March 6, 2008.
Ten weeks into the trial, on April 18, Judge Amy St. Eve released Rezko, after friends and relatives put up 30 properties valued at about $8.5 million to secure his bond.
Duffy argued that the prosecution had exaggerated Rezko's influence in state government, and attacked Levine's credibility as a witness.
[19] According to CBS News the "high-profile federal trial provided an unusually detailed glimpse of the pay-to-play politics that has made Illinois infamous.
"[20] While the jury was deliberating on the Board Games trial, an arrest warrant was issued in Las Vegas for passing bad checks in two casinos and failing to pay $450,000 in gambling debts that were accrued between March and July 2006.
[25] In 2012 a telephone interview, from prison, Rezko maintained his innocence of the fraud, money laundering and bribery charges, while admitting to other matters.
[3] Rezko donated $117,652 to Blagojevich's campaigns,[5] and is credited by the prosecutor in his trial with having delivered bundled contributions totalling almost $1.44 million.
In 1990, after Barack Obama was elected president of the Harvard Law Review, He interviewed with Rezmar Corp. Rezko did not decide to hire him however exclaimed he'd have a great shot at politics.
Obama instead took a job with the firm of Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland,[31] which primarily worked on civil rights cases.
[7][32] On July 31, 1995, the first ever political contributions to Obama were $300 from a lawyer, a $5,000 loan from a car dealer, and $2,000 from two food companies owned by Rezko.
[34][35] In 2005 Obama purchased a new home in the Kenwood District of Chicago for $1.65 million (which was $300,000 below the asking price but represented the highest offer on the property) on the same day that Rezko's wife, Rita Rezko, purchased the adjoining empty lot from the same sellers for the full asking price.
[7][36] According to Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Mark Brown, "Rezko definitely did Obama a favor by selling him the 10-foot strip of land, making his own parcel less attractive for development.
[42] In June 2007, the Sun-Times published a story about letters Obama had written in 1997 to city and state officials in support of a low-income senior citizen development project headed by Rezko and Davis.
[43] In the South Carolina Democratic Party presidential debate on January 21, 2008, Senator Hillary Clinton said that Obama had been associated with Rezko, whom she referred to as a slum landlord.
[47] In addition to Blagojevich and Obama, prominent Democrats that Rezko or his company, Rezmar, have contributed money to, or fund-raised for, are Congressman Luis Gutierrez, a friend for over two decades,[48] Comptroller Dan Hynes, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn, former Chicago Mayors Daley and Washington, and former Cook County Board President John Stroger.
[2] The late Rosemont, Illinois, Mayor Donald Stephens and Rezko co-chaired a multimillion-dollar fund-raiser for President George W. Bush in 2003.
Stroger appointed Rezko's wife, Rita, to the Cook County Employee Appeals Board, which hears cases brought by fired or disciplined workers.