CHICAGO — A federal court judge in Chicago handed down a 14-year prison sentence to former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was convicted in June of corruption charges of using his office to enrich his campaign coffers and to try to profit from his pick to fill the Senate seat of President Obama.
Blagojevich, who turns 55 on Dec. 10, must surrender to begin serving the sentence on Feb. 16. The term is the longest imposed on a former governor in the Northern District of Illinois, according to a statement from local U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald. Blagojevich also received a $20,000 fine and will remain on supervised release for two years after serving his sentence.
The sentence comes nearly three years after federal authorities arrested the sitting governor at his Chicago home. Blagojevich was the subject of an ongoing public corruption probe into pay-to-play schemes in state government conducted by Fitzgerald’s office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other federal agencies. They moved to arrest the governor after recording him attempting to trade the Senate appointment for personal gain.
“When it is the governor who goes bad, the fabric of Illinois is torn, disfigured, and not easily repaired,” a U.S. Attorney’s statement quoted U.S. District Judge James Zagel as saying during the sentencing hearing. “The harm here is not measured in the value of money or property. … The harm is the erosion of public trust in government.”
A federal jury convicted Blagojevich on 17 of 20 counts leveled against him by prosecutors, including 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 June convictions came in a retrial after a federal jury in 2010 deadlocked on 23 of 24 counts against him and found him guilty only of lying to federal investigators.
In the second trial, prosecutors dropped the more complicated counts involving racketeering. The dropped 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’s refusal to resign his post after the 2008 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.
In addition to his attempt to sell the Senate appointment, Blagojevich was found guilty of shaking down a children’s hospital for $25,000 in campaign contributions in exchange for state funding and for holding off on signing a bill to benefit the Illinois horse racing industry until he received a campaign contribution.
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 to convince jurors that Blagojevich sought to shake down a construction contractor for campaign cash in exchange for his support of a new bond-financed construction program by the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority.
