CHICAGO – A federal jury convicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on 17 of 20 counts leveled against him by prosecutors in a two-month-old corruption retrial, finding him guilty of trying to use his office to enrich his campaign coffers and profit from his pick to fill the Senate seat held by President Obama.
Blagojevich, 54, faced charges of wire fraud, attempted extortion, bribery, extortion conspiracy, and bribery conspiracy. The jury deadlocked on two counts of attempted extortion and cleared the former governor on a bribery count. The verdict came as jurors were entering their third week of deliberations during Blagojevich’s second trial presided over by U.S. District Court Judge James B. Zagel.
The jury in the first trial last summer deadlocked on 23 of 24 counts against the former governor and found him guilty only of lying to federal investigators. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office streamlined and simplified its case for the second trial that began in mid-April. The office also dropped its case against Blagojevich’s brother Robert, who served as his campaign chairman in 2008.
Prosecutors dropped the more complicated counts involving racketeering. Those charges included the accusation that Blagojevich and his cronies rigged the senior-manager pick for the state’s $10 billion 2003 pension bond sale in a kickback scheme. They also dropped the allegation that the former executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority was named to the post in exchange for campaign contributions.
Blagojevich expressed his disappointment before leaving the courthouse. “I, frankly, am stunned,” Blagojevich said. He offered little more and did not declare his innocence as he has in past statements. Blagojevich testified during the second trial, a departure from the first trial during which he did not take the witness stand.
“Public service isn’t a ticket for profiteering,” Robert Grant, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Chicago division, said at a news conference. Blagojevich follows in his predecessor’s footsteps. Former Gov. George Ryan is serving a six-and-a-half-year sentence from a racketeering conviction in 2006. Blagojevich ran for his first term in office in 2002 on the mantra of “no more business as usual,” as it was widely known Ryan was under investigation. Ryan was indicted in late 2003.
The prosecution in the second trial alleged five criminal schemes in which the former Democratic governor and his advisers sought to use their influence to steer state business and contracts and influence state legislation in directions that profited them personally and benefited Blagojevich’s campaign coffers.
The most prominent charges outlined how Blagojevich sought to personally profit by leveraging his power to name Obama’s Senate replacement after the presidential election with a job, appointment, or campaign contributions.
The Blagojevich case dates back to 2003 when federal prosecutors launched a probe into state government corruption known as Operation Board Games. As prosecutors narrowed in on Blagojevich, their investigation took a dramatic turn in October 2008 when his former aide and lobbyist John Wyma provided them with evidence that allowed them to win court approval to wiretap the governor’s home phone and campaign office.
Investigators caught on tape conversations detailing how Blagojevich hoped to cash in on the appointment should Obama win the November presidential contest. Authorities arrested Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris in December before he acted on the appointment.
Blagojevich’s refusal to resign his post after the arrest led to his impeachment by the state House and subsequent conviction and removal from office by the Senate in January 2009, putting the reins of government into the hands of then-Lieut. Gov. Pat Quinn. Blagojevich was indicted later that spring.
“We don’t like to see Senate seats sold. … Our job is to try to prevent crime, not to just prosecute crime,” Fitzgerald said at a news conference Monday in defense of the decision to arrest Blagojevich, who went on to appoint Roland Burris to the Senate seat.
Prosecutors failed to win a conviction on a scheme alleging that Blagojevich sought campaign contributions from former congressman Rahm Emanuel, now mayor of Chicago, in exchange for supporting a school grant in his district.
They also failed in convincing jurors that Blagojevich sought to shake down a construction contractor for campaign cash in exchange for his support of a $1.8 billion construction program announced by the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority in the fall of 2008 and his plans to announce a $5 billion program the next year. The authority’s swift approval for the $1.8 billion program, ahead of new limits on contributions from contractors that were set to take effect, raised eyebrows at the time. That program was later canceled.
In the first trial, prosecutors alleged that the governor and his cronies steered the books on the state’s 2003 pension deal to the former Bear, Stearns & Co. They sought to pocket $500,000 from an $809,000 consulting fee Bear Stearns paid its consultant, Robert Kjellander of Springfield Consulting Group LLC.
Former Blagojevich chief of staff Alonzo Monk testified that the promise of personal financial benefits drove the selection of Bear Stearns and the promise of a higher payout drove Blagojevich’s decision on the day of pricing to issue the full $10 billion of bonds authorized by the General Assembly.
In the first trial, Ali Ata, the first executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority after its creation in 2004, testified that he contributed $25,000 to Blagojevich during the election in 2002 and was told by Blagojevich adviser Antoin Rezko that he would be considered for a position in the future administration.
Rezko later mentioned the IFA position and asked for a $50,000 contribution. Ata, who came up with just $25,000 more, testified that Blagojevich subsequently thanked him for his support and said he hoped Ata would receive a position in which he could “make some money.”
An Aug. 1 hearing was set ahead of sentencing. Blagojevich faces a maximum sentence of 300 years in prison, though legal experts speculated he likely would receive a sentence of no more than 10 years.
Trial documents are available at
