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Monday, April 13, 2015
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Blago brother talks trial, Rod in book from NIU Press Kristin Maglabe Staff writer T @KMags_NS
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Steel Band performs at Sunday show
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Read the full interview with Rob Blagojevich about his brother, Robert Blagojevich’s account of his former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, and trial and estranged relationship with their trials at bit.ly/1IEUFWL. DeKalb | NIU Press will publish
his brother, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, on Wednesday. In 2010, Rod Blagojevich was put on trial and found guilty of trying to give President Barack Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder. In the Rob Blagojevich process, Robert, Author, brother to Rod’s brother, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich was accused of being involved with selling the seat. On Aug. 26, 2010, the charges against Robert were dropped. Five years later, Robert has told his story in his book, “Fundraiser A: My Fight for Freedom and Justice,” where he said he explains his experience with a federal trial against an “ambitious prosecutor.”
Q: Why did you choose NIU Press? A: I’m very new to the publishing world. This is the only book I’ve ever written, so it became quite an adventure for me finding a publisher. We had sent the manuscript, along with a proposal, and other ancillary information to a number of publishers, and NIU was the first to pick it up. I liked the positioning of the university in northern Illinois, which regionally is a good place because the book is for sure a regional Chicago story.
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... It dawned on me that, no, he’s talking about me. I’m Fundraiser A. And life changed for me forever.”
Rob Blagojevich Brother to former Gov. Rod Blagojevich
And it had a very good reputation, so I was comfortable that NIU Press, [NIU Press Director] Linda Manning and I could work out something that was interesting and beneficial to both the university and me personally as the author. Q: What have you been doing ... outside of working on the book since the trial ended? A: My independence day was Aug. 26, 2010, at 11:01 in the morning, when I got a text from my lawyer telling me that the prosecutors had dropped their charges against me. So, my life was once again given back to me, and I was able to, over a period of time, readjust to what I had been accustomed to, which was running my small business. I own a small company called Blagojevich Properties. I own multifamily apartments in the southeast. I’m an owner-operator, which means I’m semi-actively involved in the dayto-day business, but I have a management staff who deals with the property issues on site and so forth. So, I’ve resumed my life taking care of my business and trying to improve it because it suffered significantly
during my legal ordeal. The distraction we had at that time, and also a recession, and we had some unfortunate fires occur at a couple of the properties, so I’ve really had my hands full dealing with the trial, dealing with the bad economy and all kinds of property issues. But, we were able to kind of keep it together and are stronger than ever, thank goodness ... . Q: Could you give us a short synopsis of ‘Fundraiser A?’ A: ‘Fundraiser A’ is a first-person narrative about what I experienced dealing with, to me, an over-reaching, unjust prosecution. It starts with the four months that I fundraised for my brother, helping him raise campaign funds for his Friends of Blagojevich campaign organization, and goes through the day of my brother’s arrest and the morning that I was awoken at 6:21 [a.m.] by FBI agents flashing their badges and handing me a subpoena to turn over certain documents. And then the roller coaster that began that same day when [former U.S. attorney] Patrick Fitzgerald made an announcement in a press conference, one I thought was very, very inappropriate, talking about [Abraham] Lincoln rolling over in his grave if he knew what was going on with the Senate seat, and he alleged that it was being auctioned off to the highest bidder. And as I listened to his press conference, he referred a couple of times to Fundraiser A, and later in the day we received a criminal complaint that laid out the government’s case, and Fundraiser A was mentioned more than 30 times. And it dawned on me that, no, he’s talking about me. I’m Fundraiser A. And life changed for me forever. We began preparing, which was inevitable, an indictment that came down in April of 2009, and then the preparation of getting ready for trial, going through all the wiretapped conversations of me with almost 2,000 conversations, 284 of which were with my wife and son, and a large number of them were just personal business calls. So, it was a very, very difficult time getting ready to go to trial. We succeeded at trial, for the most part. The jury did not acquit me, they hung on the four charges that were ultimately left against me 9-3 in favor of acquittal, but the government, after consideration ... they ultimately proposed to us, in a very interesting way, an offer at the end of the trial for me to accept a severance deal, which in the end, I did not accept. And it resulted in them dropping their charges against me on August 26 at 11:01 [a.m.] when I got the text from my lawyer.
Suresh Vakati | Northern Star
Freshman Melody Walker plays with the Steel Band on Sunday in the Music Building. Information about concerts is on the School of Music website at niu.edu/music. Go to bit.ly/1EsikHq for more photos from Sunday’s show.
SA senator charged with election info leak resigns Read more
Keith Hernandez Managing Editor T @dezjournalism
Student Association Senator Jake Swick resigned Wednesday night due to allegations of disclosing election information as an SA Board of Elections member. Swick was to appear before the SA Senate on Sunday to face charges of giving election information to the Voice of Change ticket during the executive election, but the hearing was canceled because of his resignation. There was a direct correlation between the charges Swick was to face and his resignation, said SA Senate Speaker Dillon Domke. Swick did not respond to a request for comment. “Out of respect for my fellow senators, the student body and the Student Association, I feel as if the best course of action for me is to resign from office,” Swick wrote in his resignation letter, according to an SA news release. A screenshot of text messages on the group messaging app GroupMe between Swick and Voice of Change members was to be used as evidence in the Sunday hearing. The screenshot shows a conversation that took place March 26 in the group “NIUVoice of Change,” which included Swick, Student Trustee-elect Raquel Chavez and Scott Friedman, a Voice of Change campaign manager. “3 sanctions= automatic disqualification, we need to appeal, its not DeKalb
Three Student Association members resigned in to weeks. Go to bit.ly/1aI7ml4 to read more.
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Swick was nominated to the Board of Elections by Senator Adolfo Sto. Domingo a week after being appointed senator at large on Feb. 15. Domingo is a Sigma Nu member with Swick and Nathan Lupstein, who has since been elected president on the Voice of Change ticket.
Courtesy Student Association Senate
This screenshot was to be used as evidence in the hearing of Student Association Senator Jake Swick, who resigned Wednesday night.
over, its far from over,” Swick wrote in the GroupMe conversation, referring to sanctions imposed by the Board of Elections, which led to the Voice of Change’s disqualification from the executive election March 26. The Voice of Change’s disqualification was lifted April 1 at an SA Supreme Court hearing. Swick fell under a requirement of neutrality as a Board of Elections member, according to the SA Bylaws. The bylaws state, “No member of the Board of Elections, the vice president or the election commissioner shall play an active role in the campaign of any candidate.”
Future legislation The SA Senate created an ad hoc committee to examine bylaws for the online voting system Sunday. The committee will consist of one senator from every district and will eliminate gray areas that might arise in online elections, said SA Senator Robert Kreml, who sponsored the act and will chair the committee. “One thing I really want to emphasize with this is I am not throwing out the bylaws,” said Kreml, who was the vice presidential candidate for the Standing for Every Student ticket. “It’s not like I’m putting them on my computer and pressing delete and starting fresh. ... I think what we do have just needs to be changed, altered slightly.” Domke said he thinks the ad hoc committee will be the best way for the SA Senate to move forward after Swick’s resignation.