Lawyers push for new trial for convicted Blago buddy

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Rezko, a former fund-raiser for Rod Blagojevich and President Obama, was convicted at trial in 2008 of wide-ranging corruption involving state boards and commissions under Blagojevich.

Updated: April 19, 2011 5:03AM

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.