The defense asked for a five-year term, citing the dropped counts and Blagojevich’s exemplary behavior in prison.
Advertisement
In what may be one of the more eagerly awaited closed-circuit television appearances by a federal prisoner, former IL governor Rob Blagojevich is expected on Tuesday to speak directly to the judge who sentenced him and ask to be let out of prison sooner.
Prosecutors argued that Blagojevich did not learn from his mistakes and still deserved the full sentence.
“Quite frankly, I’m dumbfounded and flabbergasted”, Patti Blagojevich told reporters after the hearing. Blagojevich’s legal team repeated the phrase “actions speak louder than words” several times during Tuesday’s hearing. He’s slated for release in 2024, which is probably enough time to learn to play an instrument. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit overturned five of the corruption convictions in 2015, but maintained convictions related to his sale of a U.S. Senate seat in exchange for campaign donations.
“I don’t want to grow up because I want to wait for him to come home”, she said.
Blagojevich, who took office in 2003, was impeached in 2009 and later indicted and convicted on charges that he attempted to sell then-President-elect Barack Obama’s vacant U.S. Senate seat to the highest bidder in late 2008.
In his argument to Zagel, Blagojevich’s attorney said the governor was a different man than the one convicted more than four years ago. An appeals court ordered a resentencing after striking down five of his 18 convictions.
Blagojevich’s younger daughter, 13-year-old Annie, told the judge that she nearly doesn’t want to grow up because she wants to wait for her father to come home from prison. I don’t really have anything else to say.
The Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals a year ago tossed convictions tying Blagojevich’s bid to win a White House appointment for appointing someone to Obama’s Senate seat.
“The future of my children, family and husband, lies within your power and judgment”, Patti Blagojevich said in her letter. But the former governor noted that he never collected any fraudulent monies, and that he had spent his time behind bars “improving himself as a person, through hard work, while also being of service to other inmates”.
Three of Blagojevich’s fellow prison inmates as well as Chicago Ald. “[Inmates] think of him as a good man, but they don’t know him, don’t know him in the context of a powerful politician”.
“Once again unfortunately, I have to express our profound disappointment in the ruling by Judge Zagel”, Pattie Blagojevich said, standing with daughters Amie and Annie.
Advertisement
Blagojevich was originally sentenced in 2011 and entered prison in 2012.
