Yes, after they were convicted.
April Fools! – Only, the joke’s on Democratic primary voters.
The family bank of Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias loaned a pair of Chicago crime figures about $20 million during a 14-month period when Giannoulias was a senior loan officer, according to a Tribune examination that provides new details about the bank’s relationship with the convicted felons.
Broadway Bank had already lent millions to Michael Giorango when he and a new business partner, Demitri Stavropoulos, came to the bank in mid-2004. Although both men were preparing to serve federal prison terms, the bank embarked on a series of loans to them.
Alexi Giannoulias took a senior position at the bank at about the same time and used it as a launching pad for his political career. But as he campaigns to step up from state treasurer to the U.S. Senate, he has tried to distance himself from the bank’s business with the pair and has been reluctant to detail his role.
(More here, here, and here) I can’t imagine why Mister Giannoulias would be reluctant to explain why the bank that his family treated as a three-time cookie jar was off giving multimillion dollar loans to people who were going to jail on bookmaking and prostitution charges. I mean, doesn’t everybody enable bad loans for convicted bookies and pimps?
No, wait: I’ve never heard that Mark Kirk has done that. I can just see the bumper sticker now: Kirk ’10. No need for pimps.* You heard it here first...
Moe Lane
*I swear, writing election slogans for Illinois Republicans is the easiest thing in the world. Bill Brady? Not part of the Blagojevich administration! At all! Jason Plummer? I don’t pull knives on women. Bobby Schilling? I can tell the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence apart.
Crossposted to RedState.