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Ex-Gov. Escaped Conviction on Senate Seat Charge By One Vote

By Joe Palazzolo

Rod Blagojevich (gov)

All but one juror voted to convict ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich of the most sensational charge against him: that he tried to sell Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that the holdout, a woman whom fellow jurors declined to name, apparently saw no clear cut evidence.

“Say it was a murder trial — she wanted the video,” Erik Sarnello, 21, one of the jurors, told the Sun-Times. ”She wanted to hear [Blagojevich] say, ‘I’ll give you this for that.’ . . . For some people, it was clear. Some people heard that. But for some, it wasn’t clear.”

Blagojevich faced 24 counts of corruption and related charges. After 14 days of deliberation, the jurors — six men and six women — convicted on a single count of giving false statements to federal investigators.

According to the Sun-Times, the jurors were more evenly split on some of the counts, voting 7-5, 6-6 or 9-3.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said Tuesday that his office will retry Blagojevich.

For more on the verdict, click here.

Full post as published by Main Justice on August 18, 2010 (boomark / email).