Autopsy complete in Blagojevich confidant’s death

Dwight Welch, the mayor of suburban Country Club Hills where Christopher Kelly was found slumped over his vehicle’s steering wheel in a lumber yard, said a number of drugs were found in the former fund-raiser’s black Cadillac Escalade but declined to say which drugs. He did say the investigation was being treated as a possible suicide.

Welch said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press yesterday morning that it was his understanding that Kelly had told an officer at the hospital that he had “taken an overdose of something.’’ But he backed off that statement yesterday afternoon and said he was not “confirming or denying’’ that Kelly had made such a statement to police.

The Cook County Medical Examiner performed an autopsy but said yesterday that it could not determine the cause of death until toxicology tests are completed in 3 to 6 weeks.

Kelly died Saturday morning at a Chicago hospital, and Welch said his city’s police detectives were investigating the death as a suicide but giving the case the priority of a homicide.

An admitted high-stakes gambler who once haunted Las Vegas’s card tables, Kelly was facing at least eight years in prison after pleading guilty to fraud charges in two separate cases, and he was scheduled to start serving his time Friday.

Welch said detectives want to interview Clarissa Flores-Buhelos, 30, who he said was Kelly’s girlfriend. Flores-Buhelos told police she found Kelly on Friday night slumped over the wheel of his Escalade at the lumber yard, Welch said. Kelly is believed to have rented storage space nearby.

The mayor said it appeared Kelly called or text-messaged Flores-Buhelos and asked her to meet him at the lumberyard. He said she told police she pushed Kelly into the passenger seat and drove him to Oak Forest Hospital for treatment.

Kelly arrived at the hospital at 11:15 p.m., and was transferred six hours later to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital in Chicago. He was pronounced dead Saturday at 10:46 a.m.

Flores-Buhelos’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Kelly was facing three years in prison for hiding $1.3 million in income. He was facing five additional years for taking part in an $8.5 million fraud involving roofing work on United Air Lines and American Airlines hangars at O’Hare International Airport.

And still to come was a trial in a sweeping indictment that charged Blagojevich, Kelly, and four other men with planning several fraudulent deals involving state government and millions of dollars in kickbacks.