Giannoulias tries to shake bank issue

Democrat attacks Kirk for focusing on controversial loans to crime figures:


Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias tried Monday to shift the focus of the campaign from his family's controversial bank, sidestepping new questions about his role in loans made to crime figures.


Instead, Giannoulias used a luncheon speech to about 300 people at the City Club of Chicago to attack Republican rival Mark Kirk for focusing on the bank rather than explaining what he would do if elected Illinois' junior senator.

"He has essentially campaigned on one thing and one thing only — Broadway Bank," Giannoulias said. "My point here today is to elevate the debate. … I'm not going to let this campaign be overshadowed by his negative attacks and lies."

Giannoulias declined Tribune requests for an interview before and after the newspaper's April 2 story that revealed new details about loans Broadway Bank made to two men with criminal pasts when Giannoulias was a senior loan officer. Michael Giorango and Demitri Stavropoulos, who were convicted on bookmaking and prostitution charges, received $20 million in loans between 2004 and 2006.

Giannoulias, the first-term state treasurer, issued a statement for the story saying he did not approve the loans and only handled clerical duties on them. On Monday, in his first appearance before Chicago media since the story, he reiterated his statement that neither he nor the bank should be judged solely on the loans to those men.

"The truth of the matter is when you have a bank with thousands of customers, it's easy to cherry-pick a few and go back in time and say I wish we wouldn't have done business with these individuals. … That's not how the real world business model works, unfortunately," Giannoulias told reporters after the speech. "As I've said before, if I knew then what I knew now, these aren't the kinds of people that we want to do business with."

Giannoulias ran for treasurer in 2006, touting his experience as senior loan officer at Broadway Bank. During his speech, he also repeated that he accepted responsibility for a small percentage of loans on Broadway's books that have gone bad.

Kirk and his Republican counterparts have hammered Giannoulias on the Broadway issue and characterized Broadway as a bank that has readily loaned money to criminals.

After the speech, Kirk's campaign accused Giannoulias of misleading voters and launching a negative campaign "to distract voters from the loans he approved for convicted organized crime leaders."

Despite the controversies, Giannoulias said, his campaign is happy with recent fundraising efforts. The campaign plans to announce the totals Tuesday but said it will be less than the $2.2 million Kirk raised between January and March.

"We had a primary, which took us out from raising money for a long time. We just had our best quarter ever, so no there's no softness," Giannoulias said. "It's encouraging, (but) we have a lot more work to do."

jchase@tribune.com


http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-met-giannoulias-city-club-20100412,0,2533011.story