Jan 21, 2009 8:45 pm US/Central
Reports: Homeless Agency Fires Ill. First Lady
CHICAGO (AP) ―
A Chicago homeless agency has fired Illinois' first lady from her $100,000-a-year job as its chief fundraiser.
The Chicago Christian Industrial League's board exercised a termination clause of Patti Blagojevich's contract on Tuesday, the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times reported on their Web sites Wednesday.
Interim Executive Director Mary Shaver told the papers she could not discuss personnel issues. She did not return telephone messages from The Associated Press.
Blagojevich, the 43-year-old mother of two girls, was "saddened" by the Board's decision, said Lucio Guerrero, a spokesman for Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
"She enjoyed working at the CCIL and thinks the organization does a good job of helping empower those in need. She wishes her colleagues well in these financially trying times," Guerrero said in an e-mail.
The company hired Patti Blagojevich in August. Earlier this month, officials from the nonprofit organization said its new $25 million shelter has left them desperate to raise money to continue its 100-year-old mission.
The governor was arrested in December in a federal fraud and bribery case and faces an impeachment trial in the state Senate next week.
Patti Blagojevich is not accused of wrongdoing, and has not spoken publicly since her husband's arrest. But prosecutors say a recorded telephone call captured her profanity-laced suggestion to "just fire" newspaper editors if the Tribune Co. wanted state assistance to sell Wrigley Field.
"Hold up that (expletive) Cubs (expletive)," she says as her husband talks on the telephone, according to the criminal complaint. "(Expletive) them."
Patti Blagojevich is also a licensed real estate broker and appraiser whose Chicago real estate brokerage firm has raised questions about whether she benefited from contacts of her husband and father, powerful Chicago alderman Richard Mell.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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