Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was
re-indicted in his corruption case today as prosecutors seek to keep an
upcoming decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on "honest services" fraud
from delaying Blagojevich's June trial.The new 24-count
indictment was handed up by a federal grand jury, the U.S. attorney's
office in Chicago
announced.(Read the indictment HERE.
Read a government filing explaining the new indictment HERE.
Read a government fact sheet on the case HERE.)
Blagojevich was indicted last
April on 16 counts, including racketeering conspiracy.The
revised indictment does not allege any new wrongdoing by Blagojevich but
includes eight new counts that do not rely on honest services fraud.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Tags: Blagojevich, corruption, honest services, indictment, Obama, re-indict
I made two comments on Chicago Breaking News. One was published and the other was not. Guess which one:
1. Notwithstanding the Tribune saying that the case was imperiled by the Conrad Black appeal about the honest services law, and Chicago Breaking News saying that the U.S. Attorney was "sidestepping that law," I said that the essence of Count I was racketeering conspiracy with the overt act of extortion over a means of interstate commerce, and that is still the basis of Count I.
2. I see that the indictment still retains an "honest services" count, but the filing accompanying it says that it was segregated out of the other counts so that it could be dismissed if need be. While you don't mention that, the documents to which you link speak for themselves.
It appears that whoever is the moderator of Chicago Breaking News can't take criticism.
On a totally nonlegal bent, I realize that one is innocent until proven guilty, but the feds must have a lot on Blago if the Adamses say it would take 51 lawyer years to go through the discovery, and they had a mess of discovery on their stolen computers.