Obama golf pal called ‘hostile’ witness in Chicago fraud case

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

One of President Obama’s close friends and regular golf buddies is caught up in a steamy legal case that dates back to the pocket-padding Blagojevich days, as prosecutors accuse him of being a hostile witness.

 

Prosecutors are trying to speak with Eric Whitaker in connection with a Chicago fraud case involving millions of taxpayer dollars from the former Blagojevich administration to a businessman who allegedly spent it on vacation homes, luxury cars and more.

 

But court documents claim Whitaker, a 49-year-old physician and former hospital administrator who frequently is photographed with Obama hitting the links, has stopped cooperating with the U.S. District Attorney’s Office.

 

Federal prosecutors now want to treat him as “a witness clearly hostile to the government” the next time they question him, according to documents filed by the prosecutor’s office at the U.S. District Court in Springfield, Ill.

 

At issue is the case of Leon Dingle Jr., who faces decades in prison on various fraud charges relating to $11 million in grants his private, nonprofit companies got from the Illinois Department of Public Health while Whitaker served as its director from 2003-2007. Dingle, who has been charged along with his wife, is accused of funneling more than $3 million of that taxpayer money – much of which was intended for AIDS awareness and other health programs -- into his own coffers for private use.

 

Prosecutors want to ask Whitaker about his ties to the defendant.

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No more photo ops for him...