CHICAGO — Starting even before Barack Obama graduated from law school, his career as a lawyer and politician was nurtured by a Chicago businessman named Tony Rezko.
Now Obama avoids discussing Rezko, and his former backer isn't in a position to speak publicly. The once-dapper businessman appeared in federal court the other day, unshaven, wearing an orange jumpsuit and leg irons. On Tuesday, Obama hopes to beat Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Texas and Ohio Democratic primaries, wins that could ensure his nomination for the highest office in the land. On that same day, prosecutors and defense lawyers are expected to be in a Chicago courtroom in their second day of selecting a jury to decide Rezko's fate.
In this city's latest high-profile corruption case, Antoin "Tony" Rezko is accused of extortion for allegedly peddling influence in Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration. The trial could last through June, over four months in the presidential campaign. Obama aides say they know Rezko's trial will be a distraction but do not believe it will have a serious effect.
"Rezko has been a friend and supporter [of Obama's], as he has been with many politicians," Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, has told The Times. "It's always easy in retrospect to say this or that should been a warning flag."
Blagojevich, believed to be a subject of the investigation though he is not charged, denies wrongdoing. Obama is not implicated. But U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve made it likely that Obama's name would come up in court when she ruled that prosecutors could introduce evidence that Rezko used "straw donors" to give to politicians, apparently including Obama.
The relationship between Obama and Rezko was based on more than money.
They met in 1990 when Rezko, then starting a low-income housing development business, noticed a news article about Obama being elected the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. One of Rezko's partners called Obama on Rezko's behalf and offered him a job, according to a Chicago Sun-Times account last year.
Obama declined. But their paths soon would cross -- and Rezko would become an issue in the presidential campaign.
