WASHINGTON, May 23 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday didn’t spend much time reconsidering the case of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is about a third of the way into a lengthy prison sentence on a number of corruption convictions.
Attorneys for the disgraced former Democratic governor first filed an appeal before the high court in March, but it was refused. It reappeared Monday, a few weeks after his lawyers filed a petition for rehearing, but the outcome was the same.
Blagojevich, 59, was convicted on several counts of corruption in 2011 and sentenced to serve 14 years in prison. Among the allegations against him were claims that he tried to sell an appointment to the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama when he was elected president in 2008.
An appeals court, though, overturned five of Blagojevich’s 18 convictions and ordered him to be re-sentenced, which is scheduled for August.
Lawyers for the former governor, though, have been trying to get the high court to reconsider the case altogether. They have argued that Blagojevich’s circumstances changed when prosecutors decided not to retry him on the five counts dismissed by the appellate court.
Monday, justices simply dismissed the petition for rehearing without comment.
Blagojevich will continue to serve his sentence at a facility in Colorado, at least until the Aug. 9 re-scheduling.
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