Procedural trick helps government, hurts Cellini

It was a small detail, but one that could have huge consequences for defendant William Cellini.

When prosecutors indicted Gov. Rod Blagojevich Thursday, they didn't start fresh. Instead, they added him to an existing indictment against downstate businessman and power broker William Cellini.

That does two things.

First, said DePaul law professor Len Cavise, it effectively steers the trial of Blagojevich to U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel, who was already assigned to the Cellini case.

"I'm not making any aspersions toward Judge Zagel," noted Cavise. In fact, just the opposite. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys alike respect Zagel's fairness.

But had prosecutors started fresh, the case would have been assigned to a judge at random, with possibly disastrous consequences. In Zagel, they have a known, stable quantity. If a guilty verdict is obtained, they can be fairly certain of prison time.

Contrast that with the monster surprise prosecutors faced just last month when Judge Milton I. Shadur let former Chicago Alderman Edward Vrdolyak walk free even though he had pleaded guilty to his role in a crooked real estate deal.

The second thing the maneuver does is make Cellini sit with Blagojevich while he defends himself. That's something defense attorneys hate, particularly when there's much less evidence against their client, or their client is much less well-known than another defendant. Both situations are true in Cellini's case when compared to Blagojevich.

Federal authorities so far have implicated Cellini in only one alleged shakedown, whereas they have alleged scheme after scheme involving Blagojevich, and he has become the national personification of a corrupt politician.

"The toxicity on him (Blagojevich) is going to spill over on anybody who has to sit next to him," said an attorney involved in the case, who asked that he not be named. "The Cellini defense just got a whole lot worse."

It was a fact not lost on Cellini's lawyer, Dann Webb, who immediately issued a news release Thursday decrying the move and vowing to have Cellini separated from Blagojevich's trial. He also asserted Cellini's innocence.