Stakes the same, but Blago buzz has faded
The retrial on Rod Blagojevich feels like a second wedding. The legal ramifications are the same as in that first corruption trial, but the show seems much more modest. The guest list is smaller (no Blago brother on trial), the accessories are fewer (can Jimmy Breslin still get a story out of this?) and the participants seem more subdued (court-watchers will miss colorful defense attorney Sam Adam Jr.).
Last summer, Blago supporters, pop culture fans, history buffs and the curious started lining up in the darkness hours before dawn for the chance to see our impeached governor, fresh from his appearances on talk shows and a reality TV gig.
Even before it becomes clear that in-court jury selection won't begin until 9:30 a.m. Thursday and that nothing more exciting than potential jurors' paperwork will happen Wednesday on the scheduled first day of Blagojevich's corruption retrial, the feeling is different.
While he would arrive an hour or two before the first glimpse of the morning sun in 2010 to make sure he wouldn't miss a moment of anything Blago, Jim Osborne, a longtime political activist from the North Side, moseys into the Dirksen Federal Building on Wednesday just a bit before 7 a.m. Last year, he was a regular who would chat with others like him and reporters as he passed the hours before Blagojevich would arrive. He seems glad Wednesday to entertain the only other person outside the 25th floor courtroom with tales of political shenanigans back in the 1970s and his memory of Blago as a kid shining shoes outside a Serbian club on the North Side. He's rooting for Blagojevich, who was convicted of only one felony count in his last trial, to be acquitted of all 20 felony charges he faces in this go-round.
With no sign-carrying crowd lining the street where Blagojevich usually would emerge from a car and engage the crowd or sign some autographs, knowledge of Wednesday's trial start seems limited to a few newspaper readers among the usual crowd of people who come to the courthouse on other business.
“I was hoping to take a photograph of him,” says a young man brandishing his cellphone. Charged with conspiracy to deliver heroin, the Robbins resident eloquently notes that he and Blagojevich both share the sentiment that they don't understand how and why the government is making a federal case out of their dealings, and they both are hoping the mess will go away without requiring either of them to spend time in prison.
He might be the most colorful person in the lobby. It's a far cry from the old days when the always entertaining defense attorney Sam Adam Jr. might liven up the proceedings by talking about U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and concluding, “This guy is nuts.”
Even if the cast of characters promises to be less entertaining this go-round, Blago-supporter Pat Pontrelli vows to start making the pilgrimage to the trial from his home in Arlington Heights as soon a jury gets selected and the real action begins.
Pontrelli attended dozens of days at the trial last summer, so often that Rod and Patti Blagojevich would call him by name.
“That shows how it's appropriate for me — a nobody — to be there for him,” says Pontrelli, a 72-year-old retired truck driver.
“I'm really upset with the way they are doing this,” Pontrelli continues. “They are not going to stop until they put this guy in prison. I didn't want to come the first day, but I'll be coming down there. A lot of people have mixed feelings, but it's history, you know.”