EMAIL DETAILS

http://napervillesun.suntimes.com/6117324-417/guilty-rod-blagojevich-guilty-on-10-counts.html

GUILTY: Rod Blagojevich guilty on 17 counts

BY NATASHA KORECKI AND LARK TURNER Staff Reporters June 27, 2011 10:22AM


Rod Blagojevich | AP

Updated: June 27, 2011 2:14PM


Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was found guilty on 17 counts and not guilty of one count in his federal corruption trial. The jury said earlier today it had agreed on 18 of 20 federal corruption charges against the former governor.

The jury of 11 women and one man had deliberated for 10 days.

In a note to Judge James Zagel Monday morning, the jury wrote that they were “confident we will not come to an agreement” on the other two counts, “even with further deliberations.”

The guilty verdict follows his conviction on lying to the FBI after his first trial last summer — a trial that resulted in a hung jury on the 23 other counts against him.

The ex-governor joins George Ryan and Otto Kerner as former Illinois governors convicted on public corruption charges.

Of the 20 charges Blagojevich was facing, 11 of them involved the alleged sale of Obama’s vacant Senate seat — nine wire fraud counts as well as conspiracy to commit extortion, attempted extortion and conspiracy to solicit a bribe. Prosecutors broke down the case into five alleged shakedown schemes, including regarding the Senate seat and charged that he held up official acts on the Illinois Tollway, horse-racing legislation, a school grant and on Children’s Memorial Hospital while demanding campaign contributions.

The jury’s decision in this trial came after Blagojevich made his biggest legal gambit, taking the witness stand. He did not testify during his first trial.

This time, Blagojevich was on the stand for parts of seven days, where he repeatedly denied wrongdoing and called himself an “effin’ jerk” for the foul language he used that was caught on secret FBI recordings. He also said he consulted with advisers and his lawyer when talking about who to appoint to the Senate seat and was not making a deal to benefit himself. Blagojevich repeatedly testified he had made no final decision on who he would appoint to the Senate seat, but claimed he was close to crafting a deal involving the appointment of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to the Senate seat. He said he was arrested before the deal could happen.

In cross examination, Assistant U.S. Attorney Reid Schar quickly worked to attack Blagojevich’s credibility, asking: “You are a convicted liar, correct?”

It was during cross that Blagojevich admitted that a promised $1.5 million donation offered by supporters of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. to name the Illinois democrat to the Senate would have been “absolutely illegal.” But he wouldn’t agree that the offer was an attempted “bribe,’’ as Schar characterized it.

Blagojevich never received the proposed contribution.

But in her closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie Hamilton said it didn’t matter that the former governor was unsuccessful in getting something in exchange for the Senate seat appointment. The fact that he asked his brother to hold a meeting with the same Jackson supporter who had offered something was enough to find him guilty, she said. She also said Blagojevich broke the law when he asked a union leader and friend of then President-elect Barack Obama about a Cabinet position while considering top Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett for the Senate seat.

“The law protects people from being squeezed,” Hamilton said. “The harm is done when the ask is made because that’s the violation of the people’s trust.”

Blagojevich’s jury is made up of 11 women and just one man — something experts initially said would be a bonus for Blagojevich, since many of the women in the last jury were hung on at least some of the counts. The sole male juror in the group is someone the defense had tried kicking off for cause.


Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
P Consider the environment before printing this email.