By Allan Lengel
For AOL News
At first blush, Rod Blagojevich appeared almost Houdini-like, slipping out from under a weight of charges that seemed almost certain to bury the former Illinois governor.
A federal jury in downtown Chicago convicted him Tuesday on only one of 24 corruption counts — one that involved lying to FBI agents in 2005. It deadlocked on the 23 others, including a key one — that Blagojevich had tried to sell the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama. Blagojevich vowed to appeal what he called the “nebulous” one count, which carries a penalty of up to five years in prison. The jury deadlocked on all four charges against his brother Robert.
But did he really win? And did the prosecution lose? Depends who’s talking.
“There’s no doubt they brought 24 charges hoping to get 24 convictions,” former District of Columbia U.S. Attorney Roscoe C. Howard Jr., a friend of Chicago’s U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, told AOL News. “But they have a conviction. If you’re the former governor and you now have a felony conviction, that’s a bad situation.”
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