Chicago area businessman and political fundraiser Antoin (Tony) Rezko was spared from serving more time in prison after pleading guilty to defrauding GE Capital out of $10 million in loans to finance what Rezko portrayed as sales of two different groups of pizza restaurants in the Chicago and Milwaukee areas.

According to the indictment, between 2001 and 2004, Rezko orchestrated the sale of Papa John’s pizza restaurants in four separate transactions, each of which was financed by GE Capital. In three of those transactions, Rezko concealed from GE undocumented agreements he made with the buyers that were material to GE because they made it appear that the buyers actually had put money into the deals, when, in fact, the buyers had not done so.

The indictment notes that Rezko and his co-schemers fraudulently obtained a $4.5 million loan from GE to finance the purchase of the Milwaukee stores by a straw purchaser and his company at an inflated price, and through submission of fraudulent documents, including false financial statements about the condition of the pizza stores. Rezko also made similar fraudulent representations to obtain a $6 million loan from GE in connection with Rezko’s sale of the Chicago area pizza restaurants.

Rezko already faces ten and a half years in prison for his role in a fraud scheme involving state boards and commissions while Rod Blagojevich was governor. Rezko was found guilty of mail fraud, wire fraud, aiding and abetting bribery and money laundering. A U.S. District Judge went along with an agreement reached between the prosecution and defense, sentencing Rezko for the GE fraud conviction to a seven and a half year sentence that will run concurrent with the prison term noted above. In return for the concurrent sentence, Rezko agreed to drop his appeal of both convictions.