Just another step in the federal effort to break Blagojevich in any way possible

Perhaps Friday was the day that reality finally registered with Rod Blagojevich.

A reality check ... 



If it didn’t, then I don’t know what it will take for him to realize the predicament that his life has devolved to.

BLAGOJEVICH HAD TO appear in court on Friday, where U.S. District Judge James Zagel set bond for him at $450,000 – unless he’d rather spend his time incarcerated at the Metropolitan Correctional Center until the time comes that he is sentenced to a prison term for his convictions on 18 assorted charges.

Since I doubt Blagojevich wants to live in the triangle-shaped building that allows residents only a thin slit window view of the South Loop, he’ll come up with the money to post bond, whose point is to ensure that Rod and Patti don’t decide to take a European vacation, then suddenly decide NEVER to return to the United States.

It is to ensure he doesn’t flee.

Now it is true that Blagojevich is busted financially. The only reason he’s going to be able to keep himself out of a jail cell while awaiting sentencing is that the book value of his home in the Ravenswood Manor neighborhood and a condominium in the District of Columbia (from his six years as a member of Congress; he doesn’t live there anymore) is sufficient enough that he can put them up as bond.

IN FACT, THE reason for Friday’s court hearing was that Blagojevich had not followed the letter of the law when it comes to filing paperwork with the federal government indicating the value of his assets – which these days are little more than the house and the condo.

Now I know there are those individuals who want to think that Blagojevich somehow “won” on Friday, because Zagel refused to go along with the bond request that prosecutors wanted.

... for both Blagojeviches



One Million Dollars!!!!!!

That is the kind of bond that is set for the most vicious criminals who go on serious crime sprees. It would have added to Blagojevich’s notoriety, and may have been so high that Blagojevich wouldn’t have been able to achieve it.

HAVING A BOND so high might well have turned Blagojevich into a guy who makes his court appearances in prison garb, rather than in a nice suit with his loving wife at his side.

Which I’m sure the most intense political ideologues would have been completely happy with.

But this was a blow for Blagojevich. Since the fact that has come out in all this talk about Blagojevich’s housing is that he and Patti are trying to sell both of them.

Speculation is that the couple would like to buy a condominium in Chicago, which is where Patti would live with the couple’s two daughters while Milorod serves whatever time he ultimately receives in prison.

EXCEPT THAT IF the house and the D.C. condo are committed to his bond, there’s no way the couple can even think of selling them.

And when one considers that the federal government likely will try (and succeed) to confiscate both pieces of property once Blagojevich is sentenced, there isn’t going to be anything left to allow them to find something respectable in the way of housing for the Blagojevich family once the former governor’s address changes to a federal correctional center.

The people who have their twisted thoughts of Patti Blagojevich (who herself may be so tainted these days by her husband that she’s probably unemployable) being forced to beg her alderman father for permission to live with her daughters in his basement may well find that reality comes very close to what ultimately happens to Illinois’ former first family.

Considering that Blagojevich is the man who seriously claimed to be “stunned” at the thought that a jury could find him guilty of so many charges, I wonder if the reality of how intensely he is going to be busted financially is the jolt of reality that gets through to the man whom so many of his political colleagues considered to be “delusional” during his time in office.



NOT THAT THIS phenomenon is unique to the Blagojevich case.



Where some wish ex-Gov. currently resided



I have always believed that people watching legal proceedings should pay more attention to the fines imposed against defendants than to any prison time. Because the fine is something that the federal government can collect upon even after the sentence is served.

If set high enough (and one can be assured that it will be in the millions of dollars for Blagojevich), it can ensure that anything of any financial value is lost, and that they remain in debt even after getting their freedom.

That alone could be a significant factor in the likelihood that Blagojevich and family will leave the Chicago area after his anticipated prison sentence is complete. He may not be able to afford to live in the city any longer.

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A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): Who knew hotels would give you a celebrity-adjacent room just for the asking?

Call it one of the quirks of being the transportation hub of the United States. It makes it possible for just about any incident to have a Chicago connection.

In the case of the insurance salesman whom federal prosecutors say was behind the attempt to shoot nude video of bosomy ESPN broadcaster Erin Andrews undressing, he literally got busted at what could be considered the nation’s “Ground Zero” – O’Hare International Airport.

THIS INSURANCE SALESMAN travels a lot, and was returning from a trip to Buffalo when he was picked up by federal agents. After a court hearing on Saturday, he got to spend a weekend in the South Loop.

Admittedly, it was at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, not one of the luxury hotels like the Palmer House that would have made a downtown Chicago weekend enjoyable.

Michael David Barrett will soon leave our fair city. It could very well happen this week. He is scheduled to appear in court on Monday for a hearing that will determine just how quickly he is extradicted to California – which is where the federal prosecutors who are handling the actual illegal activity against Andrews are located.

It turns out that Barrett lives in a gated community in the upper-crust suburbs of DuPage County, which means he put on the trappings of being a part of proper society.

AND THE FACT that his job required him to travel so often made his neighbors think he was just a hard working person. At least that’s what they told all the reporter-types who swarmed into their neighborhood the past couple of days – to justify the fact that they knew nothing about him.

It was also that travel that enabled Barrett to indulge what federal officials say was his obsession with Andrews – who has a cult of fans who enjoy the thought of a blonde standing on the sidelines during games and asking vapid questions of athletes to supplement the vapid commentary offered by the actual game announcers.

If it seems like I don’t think much of this story, I’ll confess I don’t. When Andrews’ situation became public fodder earlier this year, I had little interest. In fact, the only part of this whole situation that intrigues me is the word that Barrett was able to get at least one hotel to give him a room adjacent to Andrews. If I had known that, I’d have asked for a room next door to Penelope Cruz a long time ago.

What else was notable during the weekend that the Chicago Bears tried to take our minds off of a pair of dismal baseball seasons coming to a close?

WE DESPERATELY NEED A BOOT IN THE BOOTY: Let’s be honest. Chicago is like that intelligent-but-lazy high school kid who needs the fire of a hard-and-fast deadline lit under his tush in order to inspire him to do anything.

One of the reasons I was supportive of bringing the summer Olympiad to Chicago in the year 2016 is that I figured it would serve as that deadline, since getting the city ready to stage such a massive event would take the full seven years. Work would literally have to start now to make the needed infrastructure improvements.

So when I now read commentaries and hear statements from people saying they hope the city maintains its desire to make the improvements even without the eventual treat of an Olympics, all I can honestly think to myself is that the pressure is off city officials, so maybe they’ll get to it sometime during my lifetime. Or maybe they won’t.

People have been saying for decades that Chicago’s air traffic needs (and that of the nation whose airlines pass through Chicago on many of their routes) require another airport. Officials have made plans for years. Yet I don’t see that we’re any closer now to hiring contractors or turning over spades of dirt than we were in, say, 1991.

A SCAPEGOAT ON BOTH SIDES OF TOWN: I remember as a kid thinking of Von Joshua as a light-hitting outfielder for the San Francisco Giants (although he also played a bit for the Los Angeles Dodgers).

But now, the Chicagoan in me is going to think of the baseball lifer as the guy who got blamed irrationally for bad baseball being played on both sides of the city. Joshua spent part of this season as the hitting coach for the Chicago Cubs, the identical post he held back at the beginning of the decade with the Chicago White Sox.

He got fired by the White Sox as part of an attempt to jolt the ball club into playing better – in short, because it was easier to replace one coach than several athletes who weren’t worth squat.

Now, he suffered the same fate with the Cubs – being let go right after the Sunday loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks that brought baseball in 2009 in Chicago to a close.

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