U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel, who is presiding over today’s doomed appeal, was the judge who originally sentenced Blagojevich to 14 years in prison in 2011.
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U.S. District Judge James Zagel imposed the same sentence after a almost two-hour hearing in federal court downtown. In the midst of it all, he found the time to appear on morning news shows the day his impeachment hearing started; appeared in a Chicago comedy show called “Rod Blagojevich Superstar;” he released his autobiography; and, perhaps most inexplicable of all, he starred on “Celebrity Apprentice” in 2011 before Donald Trump fired him.
Blagojevich – dressed in a green prison uniform, his dark hair turned white as he appeared via videoconference – admitted he made many mistakes, including the way he fought back against the charges.
Attorney Leonard C. Goodman said during Blagojevich’s Tuesday morning resentencing hearing that the former IL governor is making the effort “to make his family proud again”.
Zagel agreed and said the fabric of the state remains torn by Blagojevich’s crimes.
The wife of Rod Blagojevich is asking a federal judge for leniency ahead of a ruling on whether to reduce the 14-year prison term of the former IL governor. Blagojevich’s wife spoke after the hearing, expressing her disappointment with the outcome.
That didn’t go very well, but now that the famously helmet-haired governor has already served four and a half years, his lawyers argued that his stint as the singer of the Jailhouse Rockers was evidence of his changed character.
Amy Blagojevich, also spoke in court, saying it was hard to stay connected with her dad or even to have private conversations with him during visits to prison.
He said his time behind bars “has put me closer to God”. It was the 59-year-old’s first public appearance since he entered prison in 2012.
“In the absence of acceptance, it can not be said that the defendant has been rehabilitated or that he is deserving of leniency”, Bonamici wrote in a memo to the judge. She also said her husband has been adequately punished.
The former governor, his wife and two daughters hoped that would mean a lighter punishment. Their father appeared to sob as they asked Zagel to have mercy on him.
“He’s my brother, I love him. I want to be here and see how he is”, he said outside the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. His older daughter, 20-year-old Amy, said “my dad used to be my best friend” and “he’s never given up on us and we will never give up on him”.
“I am sympathetic to. how painful this situation is to them”, Zagel said, referring to Blagojevich’s family.
His attorney Lawrence Goodman is asking for a sentence reduction to five years followed by supervised release. Prosecutorssaid at the time they would not seek to re-try the former governor on the overturned counts.
However, Zagel said “I don’t draw such a clear moral distinction” between breaking the law in an effort to enrich himself personally and doing so to advance his political agenda. “The arrogance and anger are no longer present in this man”, he said. Meanwhile, Blagojevich’s attorney filed 141 pages of letters, mostly from fellow inmates, describing Blagojevich as a model inmate known as “The Gov”.
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.
Blagojevich wanted to cut his 14-year sentence after an appeals court threw out 5 of 18 convictions.
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A resentencing hearing is scheduled Tuesday in Chicago federal court after an appeals court struck down five of his 18 convictions.
