Carol Stream juror: Blago testimony ‘didn’t add up’
In the end, the decision to let Rod Blagojevich take the stand made him seem more sympathetic, but no less guilty, juror Jessica Hubinek said.
“Even some of what he said on the stand, some of it didn’t add up,” Hubinek said.
Still, the 32-year-old librarian at Carol Stream Public Library couldn’t look at the former governor when the verdict was read.
Like Blagojevich, who will likely serve time in federal prison, she has a teenage daughter.
“On the stand, it felt to me that he was genuine when he talked about his family and I genuinely think he loves his family ... but you can’t take that into consideration, as hard as it might be,” she said.
“He made his own bed, but I could tell he was very desperate and he went to a very bad place. When he started, he did want good things for Illinois.”
Hubinek said the jurors took copious notes, read and reread pages of transcripts and created timelines of the various events.
Witnesses she found very convincing included Bradley Tusk, former deputy governor, who she said had “nothing to gain or lose.” Tusk testified that Blagojevich used a grant to a school as leverage for a fundraiser.
Hubinek said her fellow jurors were intelligent, analytical and respectful of each other.
“When I think about how a jury should work, how it should be set up, how the members should work together — this jury was pretty much exactly how I thought it should have gone,” she said.
Now that the trial’s over, Hubinek said she is eager to get back to work at the library and training for a half-marathon.
On Tuesday, with news crews set up on her front lawn, she admitted to feeling a little overwhelmed.
On the plus side, she said, “I feel like I made 18 new friends (jurors and alternates).”