Rod blagojevich trial

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Rod Blagojevich behaved Tuesday evening as if he had won a grand victory: The massed resources of federal investigators and prosecutors couldn't convince all 12 jurors of his guilt on 23 of 24 criminal counts। The defiance that has sustained him in the 20 months since his arrest didn't fail him as he stood before reporters and again proclaimed his innocence।Blagojevich awakens Wednesday as a convicted felon। The U.S. Department of Justice awakens determined to prove his complicity in many more crimes than the one count that's enough to send him to prison. Rob Blagojevich concluded Tuesday than the combatants in Judge James Zagel's courtroom were plotting the second. No one walked out of that courtroom with reason to smile. Certainly not the man who walked out a convict. The jury in the corruption trial found former Governor Rod Blagojevich guilty of Count 24, making false statements. Judge James Zagel declared a mistrial on the 23 remaining counts.



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 & 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. Blagojevich noted, referring to the defense team’s decision not to call a single witness. Blagojevich had mounted a public campaign in which he repeatedly vowed to testify, a vow repeated by his lawyer in opening arguments. 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.”