On April 23, 2007, Tim Novak reported in the Chicago Sun-Times that Antoin "Tony" Rezko had thirty (30) slum buildings for which he received more than $100 million "from city and state agencies," eleven (11) of which were located geographically in then-Illinois State Senator (1996-2004) Barack Obama's "compact state senate district," Chicago's Andy Martin wrote April 30, 2007.
"In a large urban area such as Chicago state senate districts are not very large. They encompass several compact and contiguous neighborhoods. If you walked the district even occasionally you would know, you should know, almost every large building in the district," Martin wrote.
When asked about this, according to the Sun-Times, Obama, now serving as a U.S. Senator, "professed total ignorance about the slum tragedies literally on his own doorstep," Martin wrote. "How, could a state senator in a poor neighborhood not know about eleven (count 'em) slum buildings in his own district? ... Especially when the state senator's own law firm represented the slum landlord?"
Incredulous, Martin wrote: "Obama's law firm represented Rezko in his sleazy slum landlord dealings" and Obama, a "presidential candidate works in a law firm that represents a major slum landlord and he 'knows nothing about the client? The slum landlord client has slum buildings in the then-state senator's district and the presidential candidate has no idea?"
Also on April 23, 2007, after a "speech on foreign policy to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Obama told print reporters that until recently, he was unaware Rezko was a slumlord," ABC News reported.
"'Should I have known these buildings were in a state of disrepair? My answer would be that it wasn't brought to my attention,' the Chicago Sun-Times reported Obama said. 'As far as I can tell, we were never contacted by Rezko tenants.'"
"This," ABC News wrote, "despite the fact that, as Obama admitted, Rezko 'had buildings in my district that apparently were not managed properly.'"
In the April 26, 2007, Chicago Sun-Times, Fran Spielman wrote Chicago Alderman Freddrenna Lyle (6th) said the "spigot of loans, grants and tax credits should have been cut off when the first of 30 taxpayer-supported Rezko buildings in Chicago fell into disrepair."
However, the "gravy train [kept] rolling—to the tune of $100 million between 1989 and 1998. The lending to Rezko continued, even as the city repeatedly sued his company, Rezmar Corp., for such basics as no heat.
"'They were going after people for being slum landlords in one department and loaning them money in another. That's one of the bureaucratic issues we've got to resolve,'" Lyle said. "'You have to at least suspend the payments until you can get some compliance.'"
