Hospital CEO whistleblower takes down corrupt governor

The CEO of Edward Hospital and Health Services who helped bring down a corrupt governor by wearing a wiretap says she feels vindicated as Gov. Rod Blagojevich reported to prison yesterday for corruption.

Ending an eight-year ordeal, Pamela Davis, CEO of the Naperville, Ill., hospital, said she felt like she led a double life as an FBI informant, the Associated Press reported. She first contacted the FBI, raising extortion complaints regarding building a $218 million hospital in Plainfield, TribLocal Naperville reported. Davis said she felt strong-armed to use contractors that had no experience in building hospitals and felt an inner voice that something was wrong.

Davis started to record conversations in 2003 with the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board (with a wire in hidden in her bra), according to The Herald News, and passed off tapes to the FBI at department store makeup counters for eight months, according to the AP. At the time, she didn't know the scheme went all the way up to the governor, who also was accused of selling Obama's senate seat. In 2008, the FBI arrested Blagojevich.

"I had felt so wronged," Davis said in the AP article. "I felt health care ... had been so toyed with, that there was a part of me that felt vindicated, that maybe people would understand something terrible had been happening."

The FBI said Davis's help was invaluable to the investigation and the eventual conviction of bringing down the highest elected official in the state.

"I do hold Blagojevich personally responsible for dragging Edward Hospital and me through the sludge of his corrupt administration," Davis said in the AP article. "I'm glad he's going to jail, but I'm sick about all the corruption that has occurred in this state."

In addition to the toll it took on the hospital, Davis said her blood pressure rose and her nails thinned.

"I have [no] illusions that any individual is going to make a difference in changing the system of corruption that Illinois has experienced. But I still felt I should do what I needed to do," she said in a Fox Chicago News article.

Blagojevich is the fourth Illinois governor to go to prison for corruption. He was convicted on 18 counts and sentenced to 14 years in prison.

For more information:
- read the AP article
- read the Fox article
- here's the Herald News article
- check out the TribLocal article

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