Posted on 03/09/2011 8:31:50 AM PST by STARWISE
Rod Blagojevich wants to cancel his retrial, asking to be sentenced immediately, however, prosecutors and the judge would have to approve of the request.
His lawyers filed a five-page motion asking to proceed to sentencing right away and avoid a retrial that’s set to begin April 20.
“A second prosecution of this case is an irresponsible use of taxpayer funds in light of the current economic crisis and Blagojevich’s imminent sentencing on the conviction from the first trial,” lawyers wrote in the motion.
U.S. District Judge James Zagel and federal prosecutors would have to agree however, to dismiss the remaining counts against the former governor.
“There’s charges pending, the only way they get out of those charges is if the government drops them,” says Michael Ettinger, a federal defense lawyer who represented Blagojevich’s brother, Robert. Charges against Rob Blagojevich were dropped after the last trial.
In the summer, Blagojevich was convicted of just one out of 24 counts against him. A jury was deadlocked on the remaining counts.
Lawyers complained they haven’t been paid.
Rahm, you sly devil you. Would be so conveeeenient, wouldn't it, Fitzie.
And on the Rezko Chicago Way front
~~~~~~~
Convicted Rezko partner cooperated with feds
###
A onetime Tony Rezko business partner, who once was a Chicago cop and chief executive of a company that won a $50 million security contract in Iraq, has pleaded guilty to federal charges in Chicago after he cooperated with authorities.
Daniel T. Frawley pleaded guilty on Feb. 14 to bank fraud and structuring transactions — a plea that came about two weeks after his charges were made public.
The Chicago Sun-Times has learned that Frawley won a deal that will mean a significant cut in his potential sentence because he provided information to authorities regarding Rezko, who was convicted in 2008 and is awaiting sentencing. The cooperation began quietly years ago, the Sun-Times has learned.
Frawley once ran a company called Companion Security with Rezko, a onetime adviser to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
The Sun-Times has previously reported that Iraq’s Ministry of Electricity gave a $50 million contract to Companion Security in 2005 to train Iraqi security guards.
That deal soon fizzled after a regime change, leading Companion to lobby officials — unsuccessfully — from Washington to Baghdad in hopes of reviving the deal.
Frawley’s charges in federal court, however, deal with another company, called Frawley Trading Company, which had an office in suburban Hinsdale.
He admitted to obtaining a fraudulent $4.5 million loan from First Bank in Missouri and making false representations to the bank in 1999 and 2000.
Frawley also admits to structuring a series of withdrawals from another bank, taking out a total of $87,000 at less than $10,000 each time. He said he did it to avoid disclosure requirements, which kick in at $10,000.
The conduct charged is beyond the statute of limitations and his plea deal indicates Frawley agreed to waive the statute as part of a deal. Frawley could have faced more than five years but prosecutors will recommend 18 months, according to his deal. Frawley’s lawyers can ask for less time as part of the agreement.
Frawley’s attorney, Thomas M. Durkin, would not comment on the agreement.
Frawley must make some $4 million in restitution, according to his agreement. He’s scheduled to be sentenced June 1.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/4193859-419/convicted-rezko-partner-cooperated-with-feds.html
What does he care about tax payer money, retry the bitch.
He would be sentenced to double secret probation. After a few weeks Blago will be working for the Mayor.
Corruption through and through...from the grassroots to the White House.
I smell a deal.
http://inform.com/united-states/nononsense-blagojevich-judge-actor-novelist-607637a
The 68-year-old (Judge James B. Zagel) is a Chicago native who graduated from the University of Chicago and got his law degree from Harvard. He became a prosecutor in the Cook County state’s attorney’s office and later chief of the criminal division of the Illinois attorney general’s office.
In that post, he appointed a budding young lawyer, Jayne Carr, as his top aide. She later became Jayne Carr Thompson, wife of former Illinois Gov. James R. Thompson.
Gov. Thompson picked Zagel to head the Illinois Department of Law Enforcement in his administration and eventually recommended him to President Ronald Reagan for a judgeship. He was appointed to the District Court bench in 1987.
//
(no link)
Senate OKs James Zagel as U.S. judge
Chicago Sun-Times - Wednesday, April 22, 1987
Author: Michael Briggs
WASHINGTON The Senate yesterday confirmed President Reagan’s nomination of James B. Zagel , the Illinois State Police Department director, to be a federal judge in Chicago.
Without debate, the Senate approved Zagel ‘s appointment to the bench of the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois.
Zagel , 46, has headed the state law enforcement agency since 1980. Prior to that he was Revenue Department director in Gov. Thompson ‘s Cabinet.
When Zagel is sworn in as a judge, Thompson is expected to nominate Jeremy D. Margolis, now inspector general, to the top State Police post.
Groomed as an understudy to Zagel , Margolis has been a troubleshooter for Thompson since the governor created the inspector general job in part as a political foil to what turned out to be a short-circuited 1986 gubernatorial challenge by Illinois Attorney General Neil F. Hartigan.
//
http://illinoiscorruption.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-is-illinois-so-corrupt.html
Friday, December 12, 2008
Why is Illinois So Corrupt?
Watch the videos on this site:
http://www.crimefilenews.com/2008/12/chicago-corruption-fighter-and-author.html
Robert Cooley is a former mafia lawyer who worked with corrupt Illinois officials and judges. He turned state’s witness and he explains how the Chicago “Machine” still run by Alderman Ed Burke who “picks” the judges and controls the Chicago City Finance Committee and his wife corrupt Illinois Supreme Court Justice Ann Burke still are up to their ears in corrupt politics as usual. He talks how this cabal of corruption:
1- controls the media,
2-pays off the U S Attorney (former and probably still pays off his middle men, hired during this super corrupt era, who hide stuff from present US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald so the only people prosecuted are fall guys like Blagojevic so as to take the heat off the real top dog crooks like:
A- Jim Thompson (former Gov X 16 years, Director of CIA oversight committee under 1st
President Bush and member of 911 Commission under W)
B-Madigans (Speaker of the House Michael and his daughter Attorney General Lisa, who
lauder all the bribery money kicked back from State, County and City contracts through
their political fund “friends of Madigan”),
C-the Burkes, and
D-the Daleys(Richard - Chicago Mayor and partner of John Burge [the torturer to get
murder confessions] while he was state’s attorney, John - Cook Co. Commissioner who
controlled Co. Board President John Stroger Sr and his Son Todd who replaced him, and
William former Commerce Secr. under Cliniton and now wants to be Gov of IL and
therefore needs to discredit Blagojevic and Lisa Madigan).
A summary of the “system” running Illinois in my view is as follows:
Illinois for too long has been under the control of the:
1- Kingdom of former Gov. Jim (Prince John) Thompson and
2-his Lords, Chicago Mayor Richard M. and Cook Co. Commissioner John Daley (sons of former Mayor Richard J.), County Board Pres. John Stroger Jr. (son of former County Board Pres. John Stroger),
3-House Speaker Michael and his daughter Atty Gen. Lisa Madigan,
4-Alderman Ed (buddy of Fast Ed[dy] now convict Vrydoliak - both of them were leaders against African American Mayor Washington in the “cousel wars” 20 years ago) and IL. Supreme Court Justice Ann Burke,
5-former Sheriff (of Nottingham) Sheahan, and
6-State’s Attorney Richard (Gisbourne) Divine, as well as
7-other Lords such as former Sen. President Emil Jones and now his son Emil Jones Jr.
(snip)
Now that part is totally reasonable. Even if your money is totally clean - it's none of the governments damn business. They put that law in some years ago so's they could keep track of/be alerted to 'drug/criminal' activity.
See how easily it's circumvented. Instead of taking out $100,000 all at once, take out $9,999 a day for 10 days. I suspicion the vast majority of people scrutinized under this law are law abiding citizens - who then find themselves under investigation.
Yep, thanks for the correction
He needs to send all the evidence he has against the cheeky Kenyan bastard and everybody else and send the evidence to Wikileak after he goes in hiding in another country (to protect his life).
I believe ALL of it.
Dirty to the bone.
Sounds like Blago received The Offer He Couldn’t Refuse.
I’m surprised he didn’t notice the horse’s head in his bed sooner.
(or maybe a dead fish just arrived in the mail).
White House Insider: President Obama Should Be Arrested:
---Watch the Blagojevich thing – the trial.
The deal to be made. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And what happened to Rezko? That’s part of the same deal. A company called Companion Security…Blago, Rezko, the Feds. It’s all brewing – maybe boiling over? Of course the national media is burying all of this. Most of it – that’s partly why we gotta back off.
---Rezko? That could still be a problem for Obama?
(Laughs) Yeah – do you think? Hell yeah it could be a problem. The guy has been holed up in jail waiting for sentencing. Why? Why so long? Holder’s people are all over that thing – just like Blago. Obama is in the mix of that mess for sure. Does anybody really dispute that?
But you see, it’s the Justice Department’s complicity in protecting Obama during the ongoing investigations – talking current crimes here now… that is what can really sink them. Not that there is just bank fraud, RICO laws that were broken, payoffs, intimidations, – that’s all basic Chicago business as usual, right? But now add the White House’s handling of all of that since Obama became President – now you got a presidential scandal. Now you got an investigation that leads to uncovering all of that mess. Now you got grounds to legally go after Holder, Jarrett, and even the President of the United States. Hell, throw in the First Lady too…---
Save the taxpayer's money Rod, plead guilty.
Hell, I never thought I’d say this, but I wish he was still Governor. At least he didn’t raise our taxes like the mighty Quinn has.
Maybe the tapes are in safe holding, hanging over new Mayor RE’s head.
It’s a tangled web ...
See also:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2626661/posts
GQ reports: Rahm Emanuel’s “hostile” relationship with Attorney General Eric Holder
By Lynn Sweet on November 12, 2010
###
http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2010/11/gq_reports_rahm_emanuels_hosti.html
Did Chicago mayoral hopeful Rahm Emanuel have it out for Attorney General Eric Holder? Or was he just trying to protect the Obama White House?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/20/us/20fitzgerald.html
High-Profile Trial Against an Ex-Governor Ends a Top Prosecutor’s String of Successes
New York Times, The (NY) - Friday, August 20, 2010
Author: MONICA DAVEY Emma Graves Fitzsimmons and Susan Saulny contributed reporting.
CHICAGO — Around here, Patrick J. Fitzgerald , the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois and, lately, the overseer of the prosecution of former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, has been called a modern-day Eliot Ness. His name has been tossed about, without his participation, as a future mayor or governor or something. A radio host once introduced him as “the biggest Chicago guy or gal there is,” aside, maybe, from Oprah Winfrey.
(snip)
Fitzgerald ‘s big moment - The leader of the Blagojevich case won’t say it, but the trial’s outcome could change his crime-busting life
Chicago Tribune (IL) - Sunday, August 8, 2010
Author: Stacy St. Clair and Jeff Coen, Tribune reporters
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has kept a remarkably low profile during the corruption trial of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, largely avoiding the courtroom and the media throughout the summer and appearing only occasionally to catch a key moment or two from an overflow room where just audio can be heard.
But any attempt to distance himself from the Blagojevich carnival is probably futile.
The case is undoubtedly the apex of Fitzgerald ‘s Chicago tenure, which is, of course, saying something, given he has made a career of toppling high-ranking politicians, mobsters and terrorists. Fitzgerald , though, put his personal stamp on the Blagojevich case early by declaring that the extraordinary predawn arrest of a sitting governor was necessary to stop a “political corruption crime spree.”
A jury tapped to weigh those charges — including allegations Blagojevich tried to sell to the highest bidder a U.S. Senate seat left vacant by Barack Obama’s election as president — is set to begin its ninth day of deliberations Monday.
“This whole case is on him,” said Victoria Toensing, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Reagan administration and an outspoken Fitzgerald critic. “It’s his baby, and he’s responsible for it.”
That feeling is heightened by speculation that Fitzgerald , the longest-serving U.S. attorney in Chicago history, may have stayed in his post largely to shepherd the Blagojevich case. And no matter what the jury decides, the trial’s end is almost certain to rekindle interest in the top prosecutor’s possible next move, a popular parlor game in local legal and political circles.
Many have wondered in recent years whether Fitzgerald ‘s Chicago tenure was winding down and if he would seek a higher post within the Justice Department or forge a career in private practice. Shortly after President Obama took office, there had been speculation in Chicago and Washington that Fitzgerald , 49, would be tapped to oversee the FBI when Director Robert Mueller’s term ends in September 2011.
Many believe the FBI would be a better fit for Fitzgerald — a career prosecutor who was once famously described by a friend as “Eliot Ness with a Harvard degree” — than a high-paying job at big law firm.
(snip)
Thanks STARWISE.
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