We’ve all been wondering how in the world Blago could have escaped the other 23 counts he was charged with. Today, it has been revealed it was an 11:1 vote and the holdout was a woman who could not be swayed. Chicago Local News writes:
“Overall, I’d say everyone was pretty respectful. In the beginning, it was a little more heated, a lot more emotions, voting was defensive. And then we checked ourselves and took emotion out of it,” said Sarnello. “To me, it was pretty clear where we were gonna end about the third day.”
They ended in mistrial on 23 counts.
Despite the division, according to Sarnello, the 12 came very close to convicting Blagojevich on the biggest alleged scheme: trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama.
It was 11 to 1. The holdout was a woman.
“She just looked at things a different way,” said Sarnello.
He says at times jurors were getting hostile towards the holdout juror, but then they realized that she would shut down if she felt attacked.
“We’d listen to a tape and people would be like, ‘wow, that just confirms that he’s guilty’ and she’d say, ‘that just confirms to me that he’s not guilty,’” said Sarnello.
He wouldn’t identify the holdout juror because she’s been through enough.
The accusations are already beginning to fly… was she paid off, threatened, politically motivated, or truly convinced-even in the face of all of the evidence- that he was innocent? I’m sure a lot more on this will be revealed in the days to come, including the woman’s name.
