Ruined for Life: Phoenix Edition

I started this last week and just haven’t posted it –

I got to the Blagojevich trial today and heard Lon Monk’s cross examination. Monk was Rod’s law school roommate at Pepperdine and then when he ran for governor, Rod gave the job of campaign manager to Monk because he trusted him. Now Monk was an entertainment lawyer in California and was far from the soup line, but this job led to increasingly good money and power.

Boy, what a $#@%. He stated he took $70 – 90K from Tony Retzko and, of course, didn’t report the cash to anyone, not the IRS nor his long time pal, Rod Blagojevich.

There was a lot of parrying back and forth as the defense tried to prove that Monk shook down contributors for Friends of Blagojevich, but the stronger story was how a friend, the rich boy who was doing fine, capitalized on his friendship with the working class law school roommate and betrayed him when that was convenient.

May 18, 2011