Gov. Rod Blagojevich this week reported that he and his family accepted several hundred dollars’ worth of personal gifts since 2005 from a state contractor now facing charges that she bilked taxpayers for more than $2 million.
Anita Mahajan and her husband, Amrish, who has helped raise more than $500,000 for Blagojevich campaigns, gave the governor, his wife, Patricia, and their two daughters several trinkets at holiday and cultural events because of their “genuine relationship” as friends, said a source close to the Mahajans who asked not to be named.
“It was a series of gifts with an aggregate value of far below $500,” the source said. “Very small items such as shawls, Indian artifacts, T-shirts for the Blagojevich children that were given at events such as Christmas, Thanksgiving and cultural events.”
“There is a genuine relationship between the governor’s family and the Mahajans. And it’s extremely important to the cultural context of this story: When Indians come to someone’s house, they traditionally bring small gifts.”
The Mahajans were listed on the governor’s most recent economic interest statement, submitted annually as part of a legal requirement that he report gifts valued in excess of $500.
Blagojevich spokeswoman Abby Ottenhoff said in an e-mail that even though the small gifts probably did not meet the legal threshold, the Mahajans were listed “in an overabundance of caution.” She would not specify either the gifts or their value, but said they “were primarily food.”
The disclosure report also for the first time lists income from Patricia Blagojevich’s work with Chicago real estate appraisal firm Appraisal Research Partners, which did work for a number of developers, including for the firm once owned by indicted businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko, a longtime Blagojevich insider.
In her e-mail response, Ottenhoff said Patricia Blagojevich, a licensed appraiser, has worked for the firm “on a limited basis” since 1999.
“It’s not clear if income from that work is required to be disclosed under the ethics act, but the First Family decided to include it on this year’s disclosure and will amend past disclosures to reflect the income,” Ottenhoff wrote.
The developments come a little more than a month after Cook County prosecutors charged Anita Mahajan, 56, with cheating the state as head of the drug-testing firm K.K. Bio-Science, which had a long-standing, no-bid state contract with the Department of Children & Family Services. Mahajan has been charged with billing for more than $2 million in drug screenings that were never performed.
Anita Mahajan first came under government scrutiny last year following Tribune reports that Patricia Blagojevich earned more than $113,000 in commissions from real estate deals involving Mahajan and her husband, the president of Mutual Bank and a powerful figure in Chicago’s Indian community. An attorney for Anita Mahajan has said prosecutors have offered no proof to support the allegations.
Patricia Blagojevich’s job with Appraisal Research Partners comes in addition to the work she conducts with her personal real estate company, River Realty.
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Appraisal Research is owned by Gene Stunard, who in 2002 and 2003 donated more than $2,500 to Blagojevich’s campaign. Several employees donated another $3,000 to the campaign and Stunard’s son, Walter, who owns another real estate company, donated an additional $1,000 to the governor’s political campaign fund in 2002.
On its Web site, the company also says it does work with a number of government entities and Rezko’s firm.
Partners at Appraisal Research did not return telephone calls for comment.
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