Blagojevich’s attorney says prosecutor sparked media frenzy

Rod Blagojevich’s attorney says prosecutors are wrong to suggest the former governor’s own media blitzes in the months before his two trials ensured some jurors came into the case with preconceived opinions.

Prosecutors made that point in a Monday court filing in response to a July defense motion asking that Blagojevich’s corruption convictions be tossed out, in part, because some jurors may been tainted by media coverage.

Prosecutors said the intensity of that coverage was Blagojevich’s own doing.

But defense attorney Sheldon Sorosky countered later Monday it was U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s comments after Blagojevich’s 2008 arrest that sparked the media storm.

Sorosky cited Fitzgerald’s comments to reporters that authorities stopped a “corruption crime spree.” Sorosky added about Fitzgerald, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.”