Posted on 12/06/2010 5:32:03 PM PST by STARWISE
Two years after his conviction, Tony Rezko’s lawyers are asking for a new trial. And if two years was too long to wait to ask, blame the government -- and the U.S. Supreme Court, they say.
Rezko’s lawyers argued in a Tuesday filing that the businessman who was once part of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s inner circle, started talks with the feds right after his June, 2008 conviction. At the time, Rezko volunteered to be taken into custody.
“As this court is aware, Rezko began cooperating with the government shortly after the jury returned its verdict and, at the government’s request, Rezko agreed to delay sentencing while remaining incarcerated,” Rezko’s attorneys wrote.
In that time, the U.S. Supreme Court limited the way prosecutors can use the honest services law — a law used in Rezko’s prosecution and one that has been the subject of numerous appeals by defendants, including media baron Conrad Black and former Gov. George Ryan.
Black was released on bond earlier this year and his fate is still pending. He’s up in January before U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve -- also Rezko’s judge.
Rezko’s lawyers say they should now be free to challenge his conviction and ask for a new trial.
“At the government’s request, Rezko has agreed to delay his sentencing for over two years. The government alone has benefited from that delay,” lawyers wrote.
Prosecutors recently argued that Rezko’s request had come two years too late.
Rezko had hoped his cooperation with prosecutors against Rod Blagojevich would help benefit him in sentencing.
However, prosecutors never called Rezko as a witness at the former governor’s first trial and do not have plans to call him in the April retrial, sources with knowledge of the case said.
Excerpt:
A federal judge has given prosecutors permission to hand over secret FBI wiretap recordings to attorneys for Tony Rezko, a former fundraiser for ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
At a hearing in Blagojevich’s corruption case Thursday, prosecutors said Rezko’s attorneys have requested some of the tapes from the former governor’s trial as Rezko prepares for his own sentencing hearing in January.
U.S. District Judge James B. Zagel granted the prosecution’s request to turn over the tapes to Rezko’s lawyers, although prosecutors did not specify which tapes had been requested.
Meantime, prosecutors said they are finalizing a jury questionnaire for Blagojevich’s second trial, slated to begin on April 20.
.. Ping!
Waterboard him.
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