William Beavers’ federal judge is same as Rod Blagojevich’s
February 24, 2012 7:46PM
U.S District Judge James B. Zagel's court room. File Photo. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, POOL)
Updated: March 26, 2012 8:12AM
If defense attorneys Sam Adam and Sam Adam Jr. take William Beavers’ case to trial, they will face a familiar person behind the bench — U.S. District Judge James Zagel.
Beavers randomly drew Zagel as his judge in federal court. He’s the same judge who the father-and-son Adam team had sometimes clashed with — spectacularly at times — during the first Rod Blagojevich trial. The situation came to a head the day before closing arguments when Adam Jr. said he’d go to jail over Zagel’s rulings.
In the end, that didn’t happen. The case ended in a mistrial on 23 of 24 counts. Blagojevich was convicted at retrial last summer.
