At the Illinois Education Association's meeting earlier today, Governor Pat Quinn called on billionaire Bruce Rauner to come clean and return the handsome fees he collected from the state through his business deals with notorious swindler Stuart Levine. Rauner raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars from his investment firm GTCR's deal with Levine, who was on Rauner's payroll while voting on the Teachers Retirement System pension board to give GTCR investment contracts. Levine is currently serving time in federal prison for money laundering and fraud charges.
"It's time for billionaire Bruce Rauner to pay back the hundreds of thousands of dollars he collected as a result of committing a serious ethical breach," Governor Quinn said. "It was Rauner's ethical duty to disclose the fact that notorious swindler Stuart Levine was on his payroll and receiving $25k a month but he didn't. Instead, Rauner collected handsome fees by failing to disclose his conflict of interest. He needs to pay up."
In 2003, Levine was being paid $25,000 a month from a company owned by Rauner and GTCR while also sitting on the board of the Illinois Teacher Retirement System (TRS) and voting to give GTCR a $50 million contract to manage its funds. Rauner failed to disclose it to the board, committing a serious ethical breach.
"But I do know that Mr. Rauner, GTCR and Stu Levine had another interaction. That came in 2003, when the board of the Illinois Teachers' Retirement System--on which Mr. Levine served--first tabled and then approved GTCR's bid to get a $50 million investment from the giant pension fund.
"According to a Sun-Times account, the bid stalled at the board's February 2003 meeting after Mr. Levine objected but then was zipped through in May, when Mr. Rauner attended the board session." (Rauner's GTCR investments raise questions about political connections, Crain's Chicago Business, 3/11/2013)
Earlier this week, Rauner was endorsed by Levine's partner in crime and fellow corrupt Springfield insider Bill Cellini. Known as the King of Clout, Cellini was released from federal prison in November after serving time for his role in an extortion plot to shake down Oscar-winning producer and investment mogul Thomas Rosenberg for a major campaign contribution.