Mr. Blagojevich, a Democrat whose former aides say saw himself as a presidential contender some day, was found guilty of 17 counts of wire fraud, attempted extortion, bribery, extortion conspiracy and bribery conspiracy. He was acquitted of one charge of bribery. The jury said it was deadlocked on two remaining counts of attempted extortion.
The verdict appeared to be the conclusion, at last, to the spectacle of Mr. Blagojevich’s political career, which began its spiraling descent shortly after Mr. Obama was elected president in November 2008. A month after Election Day, Mr. Blagojevich, who under state law was required to pick a new senator to replace Mr. Obama, was arrested, and federal agents revealed that they had secretly recorded hundreds of hours of damaging phone calls by him and his advisers.
Mr. Blagojevich, a lawyer and former state and federal lawmaker, was accused of trying to secure campaign contributions, a cabinet post or a high-paying job in exchange for his official acts as governor — whether that was picking a new senator, supporting particular legislation or deciding how to spend state money.
The outcome came as a victory for federal prosecutors, whose earlier trial of Mr. Blagojevich resulted in a deadlocked jury on most counts and led people to wonder whether Mr. Blagojevich’s behavior would ultimately be deemed crass political deal-making but not a crime.
For Democrats here, in a state government controlled almost entirely by Democrats, the final chapter could not come soon enough. By turns, Illinois residents had been mortified by the saga, amused by its circus-like antics and, most recently, weary of the whole thing.
Mr. Blagojevich’s impeachment, removal from office and evolution into a punch line on late night television threatened the Democratic Party’s political hold on the state, created an outcry to reform lax state campaign finance and public records laws, and led to added scrutiny of some of this city’s best-known politicians, including Mr. Obama, Rahm Emanuel (the president’s former chief of staff and now Chicago’s mayor), and Representative Jesse L. Jackson Jr.
The scandal also reaffirmed an image that Illinois (where corruption, by one university’s estimate, has cost taxpayers more than $300 million a year) has long wished to shed: If Mr. Blagojevich goes to prison, he will be the fourth governor in recent memory to be imprisoned (one for acts committed after leaving office). It was a particularly swift fall for Mr. Blagojevich, who campaigned for governor on a reform agenda after a corruption scandal undid his Republican predecessor, George Ryan, who remains in federal prison.
Mr. Blagojevich, 54, the father of two girls, still faces sentencing for the earlier conviction, one count of lying to the F.B.I. about how much he kept track of his campaign fund-raising. That conviction carries a sentence of up to five years in prison.
The most serious of the counts he was convicted of on Monday carry penalties of up to 20 years in prison.
The jury — 11 women and 1 man — took 10 days to reach their decision. The jury in the first trial deliberated for 14 days.
After that trial, jurors said the case had been too tangled and confusing, and it was clear that prosecutors took that message to heart. In the new trial, which began in April, prosecutors offered fewer, simpler charges, a notably boiled-down message, and a emphasis on the thought that Mr. Blagojevich did not need to actually complete any deals to be found guilty of crimes for proposing them.
Prosecutors laid out five “schemes” in which they said Mr. Blagojevich tried to get campaign contributions in exchange for supporting racetrack legislation or road projects and pushed for a campaign fund-raiser (from Mr. Emanuel’s brother in Hollywood, Ari) in exchange for supporting a school. But the crimes involved, the prosecutors told jurors again and again, could not have been simpler: Mr. Blagojevich sought personal benefit for public acts.
0 Comment:
Post a Comment