Legal Woes

Taxpayers May Fund Blago Defense

After first trial leaves him broke.

This is just the headline Rod Blagojevich needs to further endear himself to the American public. After exhausting $2.7 million from his campaign treasury to fund his first trial defense, he could now rely on taxpayers to foot his lawyers’ bill in a second trial. On Tuesday, a federal jury announced that it was deadlocked on 23 of 24 counts, leaving prosecutors promising a retrial. And, when federal defendants can’t pay for their own defense, funds appropriated by Congress come to the rescue—but Blagojevich’s advisers are claiming that tax dollars would only be a last resort. The disgraced former governor of Illinois, whose family spent roughly $400,000 on clothes in the span of seven years, will first try to pick up some extra cash on the television circuit (he was formerly once a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice). “If he can figure out a way where taxpayers at least don't have to pay for his side of this case, he's going to do that,” his publicist said.