WASHINGTON (AP) – A shell company linked to embattled Illinois Rep. Aaron Schock paid a political donor $300,000 last year for a commercial property in Peoria then took out a $600,000 mortgage for the property from a local bank run by other donors, Illinois state and county records show.
The newly disclosed arrangement follows similar Schock real estate deals detailed by a recent Associated Press investigation into the Illinois Republican’s business transactions involving political contributors over the past decade.
The 2014 deal, which occurred after the congressman’s most recent financial report, raises new questions about Schock’s pattern of repeated reliance on campaign contributors. Political donors built, sold and financed a house owned by Schock in suburban Peoria. Donors also were involved in the sale and financing of a Peoria apartment complex in which Schock invests.
According to tax and county land records obtained by the Peoria Journal Star and reviewed by the AP, a company managed by Schock paid $300,000 last May to buy a commercial property owned by Jeff Green, a wealthy Peoria car dealer who has contributed at least $12,000 to the Illinois Republican’s congressional campaigns and who still owns a larger land tract next to Schock’s. The lawmaker then signed a mortgage application with a local Peoria bank for $600,000 – twice the listed price of the property now owned by his Illinois company, Menards Peoria LLC. Its headquarters was listed as Schock’s home in Peoria.
Banks typically limit mortgage loans to less than the full value of a property. It was not immediately clear why Schock sought such a large loan, whether there were other components of the deal or how he was awarded a mortgage loan twice the size of his purchase price. Local records did not show the bank’s appraisal value for the property. Schock’s stake in the deal was first disclosed by WMAQ, the NBC affiliate in Chicago, and Blue Nation Review, a liberal online publication.