Criminal Complaint * USA - Trucking group: No Tollway hikes
Chicago,ILL,USA -eTrucker, by Dean Smallwood -12 Dec 2008: -- The Mid-West Truckers Association has asked the Illinois Tollway board of directors to rescind its recently enacted toll hikes for truckers as a result of a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court against Gov. Rod Blagojevich involving an alleged scheme to quickly enact the plan in exchange for campaign contributions... The Tollway board on Nov. 20 approved a plan to raise tolls on trucks by 60 percent... The approval for the toll increase for trucks came four years after the Tollway increased truck tolls by as much as 300 percent, according to MTA... Blagojevich was arrested Dec. 9 on federal conspiracy charges, including allegations related to filling the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President-elect Barack Obama... In the complaint against Blagojevich, federal prosecutors said he conspired to pressure possible candidates for campaign contributions and other benefits... U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said that according to testimony from a fund-raising associate, Blagojevich also allegedly attempted to solicit campaign contributions from a highway contractor in exchange for work on an $1.8 billion road project. The governor was willing to commit even more money to the project, but wanted to see how much money the contractor could raise from donors first, Fitzgerald said. Engineering consultants doing hundreds of millions of dollars of work on the Illinois Tollway have been donors to Blagojevich...
Labels: criminal irresponsibility
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