Tampa charity to benefit from Blagojevich's 'Apprentice' appearance

The director of the Children's Cancer Center in Tampa says she doesn't know how or why disgraced former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich picked the center for his charity on "The Celebrity Apprentice."

"I have never met him or his wife and to my knowledge they have never been here," says Patricia O'Leary, who supervises the nonprofit facility that helps children with cancer by providing their families with the educational, emotional, and financial assistance to cope with their life-threatening illnesses.

Impeached and removed from office last year, Blagojevich faces a federal trial this summer on charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and solicitation of bribery.

Last spring he was going to appear on NBC's "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here," but a federal judge barred him leaving the country to go to Costa Rica where the show originated. His wife, former first lady Patti Blagojevich, competed in his place.

She picked the Children's Cancer Center in Tampa to receive a portion of the money she earned on the show after a Chicago charity, the Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation, turned her down.

Bear Necessities is affiliated with a hospital that her husband is accused of extorting for a $50,000 campaign donation. Patti Blagojevich lasted 23 days on "Get Me Out of Here."

Blagojevich apparently was steered to the Children's Cancer Center by his Tampa-based publicist Glenn Selig, a former Tampa television reporter who now runs The Publicity Agency, one of the top PR firms in the U.S.

O'Leary says that any money raised for the center by Rod Blagojevich on "Celebrity Apprentice" would come from NBC.

"We are not directly involved in a fundraising event with him and we are not endorsing him," she says. "And we're not being asked to make a moral judgment about him," she says.

The center, at Cypress Street and West Shore Boulevard, is currently serving 600 families.

"This is money that goes directly to people who could use it, such as a mother of two who needs gas money to get her child to chemotherapy," she says.

The Blagojeviches have not said how they picked the Tampa charity.

"It is not out of the ordinary for people to make donations after visiting our Web site," says O'Leary.

On the opening episode of "Celebrity Apprentice" on Sunday night, Blagojevich jokes that about the difficulty of having to ask people for money even for charity.

"When I come calling for money these days, someone else is listening," he tells Donald Trump. "And people on the other end know that."

Trump has praised Blagojevich for displaying "courage" by going on the show.