Obama Still Allied With Granny Grifter - Part II

According to Michael Sneed's Friday Chicago Sun Times column Barack Obama is continuing to use Illinois State Treasurer Alexi Gianoulias in his Presidential campaign. As Flying Debris has pointed out here, here, here, here, here, here and here, that as a private citizen Mr. Gianoulias was involved as a bank loan officer in a $1 million scam that could ultimately defraud an 87 year-old woman of her home near the edge of Chicago's Greek Town. Mr. Gianoulias was working for his family bank, the Broadway Bank of Chicago when the bank made the $1 million loan to a woman who could not afford to repay the loan (as Alexi admitted under cross examination), could not fill out the loan forms and who had felons as co-signers, including one convicted of bank fraud. The felons ended up taking the money and now the Gianoulias family bank is suing the woman to take her home.

Apparently the Gianoulias family bank had a previous relationship with one of the co-signers, Michael "Jaws" Giorango, including the mortgage they held on the Miami hotel that he used as part of a nation wide prostitution ring. Here's what the Sun Times found last year:

Earlier, Giannoulias also had tried to distance himself from the loans, saying they occurred in the 1990s, when he was not a full- time employee at the bank. But subsequent reports revealed that Giannoulias had overseen $11.8 million in loans to a firm run by Giorango and Stavropoulos last year when Giannoulias was senior loan officer. Some of that money was used to buy a riverboat casino marina in Myrtle Beach, S.C.

When the Broadway Bank sued the victim of the mortgage fraud and tried to take her home Alexi Gianoulias claimed in court that he did not remember most of the specifics of the loan in question. That is despite the fact that the loan involved an 83 year-old woman who could not fill out the forms and a couple of felons including a man convicted of bank fraud, one would hope that an arrangement like that is unusual enough to remember. Considering the millions of dollars involved it strikes me that there is a lot more here than we currently know.

Last month Alexi spent the better part of a week at the Obama Chicago Volunteer Headquarters doing some "phonebanking". Well Alexi has been trying to find a gym in Las Vegas so that he and Barack can play basketball before the Caucus Saturday morning. Here is what Sneed wrote Friday:

$$$: State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias was last spotted trying to set up a Saturday morning basketball game in Las Vegas so Barack Obama could loosen up on primary day.

Of course Alexi should help Barack, they're friends and Alexi owes his current position to Obama and his very strong "rock star" support for the Gianoulias candidacy while many of the specifics surrounding the fraudulent bank loan were publicly known. Flying Debris featured an Obama/Gianoulias commercial from 2006 in this post. This is another example of the caliber of the people around Obama, it is also an example of poor reporting by the press.

Obama Still Allied With Granny Grifter Part I.