Springfield businessman Bill Cellini, who is awaiting sentencing on federal corruption convictions, has been released from Memorial Medical Center after suffering a heart attack Monday, a family spokesman said today.
“Cellini had been experiencing fatigue and some difficulty breathing in the last few months and was administered a stress test and underwent an angioplasty procedure, which showed two blockages in an artery leading from the heart,” spokesman Richard Ciccone said in a statement.
“After correcting the major blockage with the insertion of a stent, a (blood) clot formed or was dislodged and caused another blockage, precipitating the heart attack,” Ciccone said. “After the clot was controlled, a third stent was placed in Cellini’s heart.”
Cellini, 77, is resting at his Leland Grove home and will begin a rehabilitation program and undergo more testing. He has been under a cardiologist’s care since 1996, when he also suffered a heart attack, Ciccone said.
A federal jury in Chicago last fall found Cellini guilty of conspiracy to commit extortion and aiding in the solicitation of a bribe.
The case involved attempts to get a $1.5 million campaign contribution for then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich from Thomas Rosenberg, the Oscar-winning producer of the movie “Million Dollar Baby.” Rosenberg was a principal in an investment company that got business from the Illinois Teachers’ Retirement System.
No definite date has been set for sentencing, Ciccone said.
Bernard Schoenburg can be reached at 788-1540. Follow him at twitter.com/bschoenburg.
