Former US governor sentenced to prison

Rod Blagojevich, who tried to sell senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, has been ordered to serve 14 years behind bars.

Rod Blagojevich
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In a state replete with corruption, Blagojevich received the longest prison sentence of any Illinois governor [Reuters]

Ousted Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for trying to auction off President Barack Obama’s vacated US senate seat and a host of other corruption charges.

Judge Zagel’s sentence “is a clear warning to all elected officials that public corruption of any form will not be tolerated.”

– Mark Kirk, Illinois Senator

“When it is the governor who goes bad, the fabric of Illinois is torn, disfigured and not easily repaired,” federal judge James Zagel said on Wednesday during his sentencing of the former governor.

“The harm here is not measured in the value of money or property… the harm is the erosion of public trust in government.”

Blagojevich was arrested in the midst of what prosecutors called a “political corruption crime spree” just weeks after Obama’s historic November 2008 election.

He was convicted of 17 corruption counts in June after his first trial resulted in a hung jury on all but one of the charges.

Corrupt politics

While Obama managed to emerge untainted, the scandal shone a spotlight on the state’s corruption-filled political scene and cast a shadow on his early days in office.

Five of the past nine Illinois governors have been indicted or arrested for fraud or bribery. Blagojevich’s predecessor, Republican George Ryan, is currently serving a six-and-a-half year jail term for fraud and racketeering.

Blagojevich, who must report to prison on February 16 and pay nearly $22,000 in fines, earned the distinction of being handed the longest sentence of any Illinois governor.

Blagojevich, 54, was also convicted of trying to shake down the head of a children’s hospital, a construction executive and a racetrack owner for campaign contributions, as well as trying to get the owner of the Chicago Tribune newspaper to fire editorial writers who criticised his leadership.

He appeared to be a chastened man on Wednesday, tearfully apologising for his “self-absorbed” and “immature” comments and for trying to fight the case in the media, even while insisting that he never meant to do anything wrong.

But Blagojevich’s prior unrepentant swagger and insistence that he was simply engaged in political horse-trading was held against him.

Political theatre

The expletive-laden transcripts of Blagojevich’s secretly recorded conversations and his subsequent antics created fascinating political theatre.

The circus began when the FBI released a transcript of a secret tape in which Blagojevich called his chance to appoint a new senator to replace Obama “[expletive] golden” and said “I’m not just gonna give it up for [expletive] nothing.”

A few weeks later, Blagojevich defied his party by appointing attorney Roland Burris to fill the seat, prompting a showdown in Washington as Democrats tried to block his entry to the senate.

The bizarre show took another twist when Blagojevich skipped the beginning of his impeachment trial in January 2009 and instead flew to New York for a series of media appearances in which he slammed the “kangaroo court”.

He was soon toppled from office despite an impassioned plea to keep his job and spent the months before his first trial proclaiming his innocence on the US media circuit, including during a short-lived stint on the TV show “Celebrity Apprentice”.

The flamboyant politician and media phenomenon returned to the airwaves, pitching everything from his innocence to pistachios, after his first trial ended with a conviction on a charge of lying to federal agents and a jury deadlock on 23 other charges.

The case helped Republican Mark Kirk narrowly beat a Democratic challenger and Obama protege to win the seat in November.

Kirk released a statement on Wednesday praising prosecutors and saying Zagel’s sentence “is a clear warning to all elected officials that public corruption of any form will not be tolerated”.

Source: News Agencies