By Ben Calhoun, IL Public Radio
Chicago, Ill. – Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was in Chicago Thursday to promote his new education funding plan, but he also found himself facing a new scandal.
The scandal revolves Anita Mahajan, who is charged with cheating the Department of Children and Family Services out of more than $1 million.
Prosecutors say for years Mahajan's company, K&K Bio-Science, billed DCFS for urine tests that were never performed.
On Thursday, Blagojevich emphasized that it was a DCFS inspector general who found the problem: "Our inspector generals that we put in place, laws that we passed police the system."
The governor says that means the safeguards are working. "They're tracking things that in the old days no-one every bothered to look at," Blagojevich added. "And they discovered something, doesn't matter who you are, you do something wrong, you're going to be held accountable."
Anita Mahajan has close ties to the Governor. She's been involved in real estate deals with the governor's wife, Patti. Those deals netted the first lady more than $100,000 in commissions.
Mahajan's husband also contributed $10,000 to Blagojevich's campaign fund.