By John Dempsey, WLS-AM News
(CHICAGO) The United States Supreme court has again denied an appeal request from imprisoned former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
The court did not comment as it wrote on it’s website that it was declining to hear Blagojevich’s appeal of his corruption conviction and 14 year prison sentence. Blagojevich is about halfway through the sentence at a federal prison in Colorado after being convicted of in 2011 of a variety of charges, including allegations that he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat that Barack Obama was vacating to become President.
Blagojevich is scheduled to be released in 2024. His attorneys tried to make the argument to the high court that the law does not clearly define the difference between legal and illegal political fundraising. The court had previously rejected his appeal request in 2016.
The decision means that the only hope for an early end to the ex-Governor’s prison sentence is if President Donald Trump decides to pardon Blagojevich or commute his sentence. The two men have a history, after Blagojevich appeared on Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” reality show in 2010.
Even though Trump fired Blagojevich on the show, he later told Forbes magazine that he “felt bad for him and his family.”
@ 2018 WLS-AM News
