Blago's Bookie Past

Rod Blagojevich's criminal misdeeds may have started long before he became governor. ABC7 in Chicago reports that Robert Cooley, an attorney and former undercover informant for the FBI, alleges that in the Eighties Blagojevich was a bookie on the North Side of Chicago who regularly paid tribute to the Mob. "When I was working with government wearing wire, I reported, I observed Rod, the present governor, who was running a gambling operation out in the western suburbs. He was paying street tax to the Mob out there," Cooley said. Cooley's undercover work in the Eighties put away 24 mobsters. A spokesman for Blagojevich would not comment on the accusations.