No one stopped Levine

Hanging in the balance--Tony Rezko's fate, and maybe Barack Obama's. I updated my post yesterday, but in case you missed it, plus more:

Rezko's lawyer did a good job ripping Levine, the main witness against him, but the prosecution pushed back. Sun Times:

Duffy pointed to a transcript showing Levine then changed his answer.

But Schar reminded jurors that much of Levine's testimony was backed up by conversations in 2004 that Levine had no idea the feds secretly recorded. Schar also pointed out that a man who got hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash from one of Rezko's and Levine's alleged schemes, Joseph Aramanda, had no ties to Levine.

Aramanda is key. An Obama connection there.

(Hillary's not getting out yet. This is also on the Tribune's editorial page.) The case has gone to the jury now for deliberation. Tribune:

But Duffy reserved his sharpest comments for Levine, who the lawyer said was a habitual crook who tried to frame Rezko to get a lighter sentence from prosecutors. Levine was so slick that he managed to sell his story to trained law-enforcement personnel whose antenna should have been up for deception.

"He conned them," Duffy said. "He got the better of them. He got his deal."

Niewoehner told the jury not to concentrate on Levine but to rely on the undercover recordings the government made in the case. Tapes don't get drunk and they don't make plea bargains with the government, he said, answering some of Duffy's criticisms of prosecution witnesses.

"Their memories don't get worse," Niewoehner said. "They don't use drugs."

The amount of each kickback was mentioned somewhere in the tapes the jury will hear again as they deliberate, Niewoehner said. He asked them to listen when complicated deals were being discussed by players in the case and note that no one stopped Levine to ask what he was talking about.

Will Tony be convicted and start talking? Or will the jury let him walk.

LGF does a rundown on the Skeletons of Obama, Rezko included.