Lone holdout juror spared former governor

A LONE holdout juror was all that saved former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich from being convicted on corruption-related charges, the jury foreman said yesterday, as prosecutors vowed to retry the case.

James Matsumoto said the 12-member jury he headed was just a hair’s breadth from convicting Blagojevich on many of the charges against him, including corruption for his alleged attempt to barter the US Senate seat vacated by president-elect Barack Obama in 2008.

“There was 11 to one for a few of the counts,” Matsumoto told NBC television.

He said the juror at odds with the others on many of the 23 deadlocked counts — a female retiree from the Chicago suburbs — kept the panel from reaching the required unanimity that would have given prosecutors a resounding victory in their case.

“She saw it as no crime was being committed. It was just talk — political talk,” Matsumoto said.

The jury convicted Blagojevich on just one of the counts he faced — a charge that he had lied to FBI agents about his intense involvement in campaign fundraising.

The sole guilty verdict carries a maximum five-year jail sentence.

The jury deadlock extended to the central charge against the disgraced governor: that he schemed to profit from his post from his earliest days in office and in 2008 attempted to barter Obama’s Senate seat.