Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was found guilty of a single count in the 24-count indictment against him, setting the stage for a raucous scene in the lobby of the Dirksen federal building in which Blagojevich accused U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of conducting “a persecution” against him.
The single conviction, for making a false statement to federal law enforcement officials, fell short of substantiating Fitzgerald’s claim that he intervened to stop a “crime spree” in which Blagojevich was seeking to auction off a U.S. Senate seat.
The jury’s deadlock on 23 other counts against the former governor represents at least a temporary setback for Fitzgerald. The U.S. Attorney, whose almost nine-year stint in the high-profile office includes successful prosecutions against former press baron Conrad Black and Mayor Richard M. Daley‘s former patronage chief Robert Sorich, vowed to retry Blagojevich on at least some of the counts on which the jury was unable to reach a verdict.
The sole guilty count arose from an interview in 2005 in which Blagojevich, then a sitting governor, told FBI agents there was a “firewall” between his governance and fundraising.
In the lobby of the Dirksen Federal Building, Blagojevich excoriated Fitzgerald, vowed to appeal the conviction, and declined comment on whether he would testify in an expected retrial of the charges.
“I did not lie to the FBI,” Blagojevich said. Blagojevich referred to the count on which he was found guilty, of lying to the FBI, as “one nebulous charge from five years ago.”
“We didn’t even put a defense on and the government didn’t prove its case,” Blagojevich noted, referring to the defense team’s decision not to call a single witness. Before the trial, Blagojevich had mounted a public campaign in which he repeatedly vowed to testify, a vow repeated by his lawyer in opening arguments.
“This is a persecution,” Blagojevich said of the federal case against him. He questioned Fitzgerald’s focus on the case at a time “when cops are being shot in the streets.”
“We have a prosecutor who wasted and wanted to spend tens of millions of dollars,” Blagojevich said. “The government did not prove its case. We didn’t even put a defense on and the government didn’t prove its case.”
Blagojevich invoked his promise to the people of Illinois that he had not violated any public trust. “From the very beginning when this all happened, I told them that I did not let them down,” he said. “I didn’t break any laws. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
The former governor was cheered when he left the Dirksen Federal Building and told a Spanish television television station “No culpable” [Not guilty].
Outside his Northwest Side home later in the day, Blagojevich stated that the case was “about a government prosecutor out of control, prosecuting someone for whatever motivation.”
The crowd cheered Blagojevich as he made his way to his home. “Love you Rod,” shouted one woman.
“I thought you were a good governor,” said a young boy.
To other bystanders, though, the jury’s verdict seemed to leave open questions about corruption in Illinois government.
“I’m saddened that there are so many bad politicians in our government,” said Harold Warren of Palos Heights, who moments earlier had peered through a plate glass window as Adam Jr. spoke to the press inside. Warren said he had hoped the trial would start “cleaning things up” in Chicago, “but now we don’t know when that will be.”
“I think he’s guilty enough,” Warren said. “But maybe not on all of the counts.” Warren worried that a retrial will hurt taxpayers. “We’re paying an unnecessary amount of money for this.”
During the defense team’s press conference in the lobby of the Dirksen building, Blagojevich’s defense lawyer, Sam Adam Jr., criticized the prosecution for its immediate, stated intent to retry the case. Echoing remarks by his client, Adam Jr. questioned the government’s expenditure of resources. “Why are we spending $25 to $30 million on a retrial when you couldn’t prove it in the first case?” Adam Jr. asked.
Sam Adam Sr., another defense lawyer, implied that Fitzgerald is pursuing a vendetta. “This guy is going wild. He is nuts,” Adam Sr. said.
“Mr. Fitzgerald thinks this is a banana republic or something,” Adam Sr. added.
Fitzgerald appeared briefly after the defense lawyers left the lobby and read a statement in which he declared an intent to retry the case. He walked away without comment as reporters shouted questions to him about his claim, on the morning of the indictment nearly two years ago, that he had intervened to stop a “crime spree.”
The atmosphere was tense earlier Tusday when, shortly after 3 p.m., a mostly middle-aged jury of six women and six men (two African Americans and one Asian American) convicted Blagojevich on a lone count and were deadlocked on 23 other counts. Blagojevich smiled and cracked jokes while his defense lawyer, Sam Adam Jr., nervously rubbed his hands. His wife Patti sat with spectators, a strained look on her face.
After the verdict was announced, prosecutor Reid Schar told Judge James Zagel: “It is absolutely our intention to retry this to resolution.”
Judge Zagel said he anticipated a different approach to the case when it next comes to court. “I think the process might be simpler in this case than the first time around,” Zagel said. “It probably will be easier to get a jury pool. And possibly the cases will be refined or recast in some way.”
“With respect to defendant Rod Blagojevich, it is my present contention to continue the same bond,” Zagel said.
Zagel gave a date of Aug. 26 for lawyers to meet and discuss the manner and time of a retrial. The jury later would leave the building without speaking to reporters.
No verdict was delivered on the charges against Robert Blagojevich, the former governor’s brother who ran Rod Blagojevich’s campaign fundraising organization Friends of Blagojevich.
The surprise verdict seemed likely to roil Illinois politics, raising questions about the impeachment of a sitting governor based in part on unsubstantiated criminal charges against him.
Even so, Republicans sought to take advantage of an outcome that seems likely to keep Blagojevich’s name in front of voters as they go to the polls in November.
Gubernatorial candidate Bill Brady in a statement sought to connect Blagojevich to the state Democratic ticket.
“One thing is clear – the people of Illinois are rightly frustrated about the unchecked power of politicians like Rod Blagojevich who put the special interests before taxpayers. This important election in November marks the single best opportunity in our lifetimes to finally clean house in Springfield.”
Alderman Richard Mell (33rd Ward), Rod Blagojevich’s father-in-law and erstwhile political godfather, declined comment when reached by phone after the verdict. “I’m not going to be talking with anybody,” Mell said before hanging up.
With his Northwest Side precinct captains, Mell helped Blagojevich power his way from obscurity to the governor’s mansion, and Mell had hoped that his son-in-law would become president in 2008. Instead, the two men fell out during Blagojevich’s first term in office.
It was unclear immediately what sentence might apply to Rod Blagojevich based on a single conviction of lying to government agents. If the experience of John Sullivan, a former official in Chicago’s Street and Santitation Department, serves as a guide, then Blagojevich would not be looking at much time in prison from the single conviction against him.
Sullivan was a co-defendant of Sorich, Daley’s longtime patronage chief, in a 2006 federal corruption trial. Sullivan was acquitted of on a wire fraud count but convicted for lying to federal investigators about illegal patronage hiring at City Hall.
He eventually was sentenced to only 60 days behind bars and two years of supervised release, his defense lawyer, Cynthia Giachetti, said today.
“The statute calls for as long as five years and the guidelines are lower,” Giachetti told the Chicago News Cooperative. “If [Blagojevich] were found guilty and proceeded to sentencing on that conviction, he would be looking at a much lower sentence than if he were guilty of the other charges.”
Speculation about possible penalty on a single count is a considerable turnaround from the picture created nearly two years ago, when Blagojevich was arrested at his home early on the morning of Dec. 9, 2008. Later that day, Fitzgerald stood before reporters in what he described as a “sad day for government.”
In notably vivid rhetoric, Chicago’s top federal prosecutor said the government had stepped in to stop a “crime spree,” adding Blagojevich’s conduct related to the alleged selling of a U.S. Senate seat “would make Lincoln roll over in his grave.”
During the trial, assistant U.S. attorneys Chris Niewoehner, Carrie Hamilton and Schar–- the same trio that successfully prosecuted former Blagojevich fundraiser Tony Rezko –- set about telling the jury a story of a desperate, self-centered politician who was looking to profit from the governor’s mansion from about time he took office.
The government spent six weeks interviewing 27 witnesses and playing over 100 wiretapped tapes featuring Blagojevich, his aides, advisors and Robert Blagojevich, discussing ways in which the ex-governor could leverage his position of power to make money.
Included among the witnesses were former Chiefs of Staff John Harris and Lon Monk, as well as top confidant John Wyma – each of whom detailed the ways in which Blagojevich tried to trade state actual for personal profit.
The salient argument among Rod Blagojevich’s former advisors was that the former governor was dismissive of anybody who told him “no,” and thus they often placated him by signing onto his ideas. Former Deputy Gov. Bob Greenlee described an “in-and-out” mentality, and how, in the interest in staying on the inside, he would often appease the governor by agreeing with him.
The defense tried to seize upon this notion in its informal advice-of-counsel defense, but prosecutors pushed back. In his closing argument, Schar told jurors, “The time for accountability for these crimes is now.”
Prosecutors apparently faced difficulty in their effort to present evidence to the jury of alleged extortion efforts by Blagojevich and his brother Robert.
They presented three key examples to the jury: racetrack owner John Johnston, who was pressured by Blagojevich to give a donation in exchange for his signing a bill that would provide tax money to tracks; Donald Feinstein, executive director of the Academy for Urban School Leadership, who testified that Blagojevich held up state money for an athletic field at Chicago Academy until former Rep. Rahm Emanuel would encourage his Hollywood agent brother to hold a fundraiser; and Children’s Memorial Hospital CEO Patrick Magoon, who testified that Blagojevich delayed increasing state Medicaid reimbursement rates for doctors until Magoon would host a fundraiser.
Magoon had testified about a disconcerting fundraising call that came from Robert Blagojevich just five days after Rod Blagojevich had promised to increase the rates.
“You have a tremendous amount of information,” Niewoehner said in his closing argument, “but I am going to contrast that with Patrick Magoon. Patrick Magoon didn’t know anything behind the scene.”
The defense countered that the government’s charges really only constituted politics-as-usual; that Blagojevich never willfully committed a crime; that he was the victim of bad advice by advisors (who had with law degrees); and that he never actually made any money off the alleged schemes.
“Not one corrupt dollar,” wailed attorney Adam Jr.
Blagojevich’s attorneys had continually complained about the way they were being treated by Zagel, who upheld an overwhelming number of the prosecution’s objections during the trial.
In a motion filed on the day the jury was handed the case, Blagojevich’s defense team charged that, “The court, in an apparent endorsement of the government in front of the jury, erroneously ruled on the government’s improper objections, making findings of credibility and fact.”
One key aide who did not testify was former Blagojevich fundraiser Christopher Kelly, who committed suicide last September after pleading guilty to fraud. Zagel did not allow the defense team to get into the specifics of Kelly’s death with the jury. The government decided against calling Rezko to the stand – a point the defense had attempted, also unsuccessfully, to bring up in closing arguments.
In addition to the 38-year-old Adam Jr., Blagojevich’s legal team was comprised of a ragtag group of colorful, if inexperienced, lawyers. The lead counsel, Sam Adam Sr., although having served 49 years in the Chicago bar, was mostly known for his violent crimes cases in state court. Sheldon Sorosky, a former state prosecutor, also had limited experience at Dirksen. Attorney Aaron Goldstein, who handled the lion’s share of the defense team’s cross-examinations, primarily did DUI and misdemeanor cases before the Blagojevich trial.
Idalmy Carrera, Rachel Cromidas, Mick Dumke, Katie Fretland, Dan Mihalopoulos and Jose More contributed reporting
What a bunch of BS. So now what happens? Is he re-tried on the other 23 counts, or does he walk?