• Share
• E-Mail
• Print

He pressed his lips together, thumped his fingers hard on the table and let out a long sigh.

"It would probably be correct," Robert Blagojevich said, to say his brother dragged him into the 20-month legal ordeal that he has called a nightmare.

"Because of that fateful decision my life is irreparably changed, irrevocably changed," Robert Blagojevich said of going to work for his brother's campaign fund in Chicago in 2008. "I've gone down a path that I never anticipated'' -- one that has been "catastrophic'' for his life, he said.

Still, the retired Army lieutenant wasn't about to unload on former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

"It wouldn't be constructive for me to go into what my feelings are about the situation I have been through," Robert Blagojevich says. "It wouldn't help anybody right now."

The Nashville, Tenn., resident spoke to the Chicago Sun-Times at length the day before he learned prosecutors would drop all four charges against him. That means he won't be retried along with his brother, whose first trial ended Aug. 17 with Rod Blagojevich being convicted on one count of lying to the FBI but a hung jury on the other 23 counts against him.

The government's move to drop the case clearly took him by surprise. During the interview, his lawyer, Michael Ettinger, predicted: "The odds are greatly, greatly against it."

Although he has since said he was overjoyed by the feds' decision, Robert Blagojevich, 55, spoke Wednesday of the personal and financial toll involved in fighting a federal criminal case. That included wiping out nearly all his 33 years of retirement savings and mortgaging his custom-built home beyond its worth.

"It's been not just personally and psychologically challenging, but it's been financially catastrophic to us," he said.

While he tried to ignore much of his brother's media blitz, he and Ettinger were rattled by a comment Rod Blagojevich made on the air a few days ago.

The former governor said that he warned his brother about the ongoing federal investigation -- and said there was a tape of a recorded phone call to prove it.

But Robert Blagojevich had testified that he only agreed to head the Friends of Blagojevich campaign fund after Rod and Patti Blagojevich had told him in July 2008 that the federal investigation was behind them.

It was months later that the recordings began and months later that Robert Blagojevich realized the probe was wider and deeper than he previously thought, he said.

Robert Blagojevich said he only realized the depth of the probe when the government subpoenaed Patti Blagojevich's real estate records last fall, he said.

"She had boxes and boxes of documents that were subpoenaed," Robert Blagojevich said.

That's when he agreed he would help quietly copy the records to make it less likely the request would become public.

He could have fled to Nashville, but he didn't want to abandon his younger brother, he said.

"I was concerned for my brother's family. My brother needed my help, really more than ever at that point. I realized, if I bailed on him, what's he got left- " Robert Blagojevich said. "I in no way was concerned about myself."

Robert Blagojevich was charged in April 2009 with trying to help his brother sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated when Barack Obama became president. The charges largely revolved around a Dec. 4, 2008 phone call -- recorded by the FBI -- when Rod Blagojevich told his brother how to approach a supporter and fund-raiser of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr (D-Ill.) about elevating the congressman to the Senate seat. The former governor tells his brother to ask for something "tangible, up front."

"You gotta be careful how you express that," Rod Blagojevich says on tape. "And assume everybody's listening, the whole world's listening."

"Right," Robert Blagojevich says.

Prosecutors say that conversation showed the governor was directing his brother to ask for a $1.5 million campaign contribution in exchange for the Senate seat appointment.

Some jurors thought that exchange was enough to convict Robert Blagojevich, but others were not swayed, jurors said in interviews after the trial ended.

To those who didn't believe him, Robert reiterated his testimony that he was distracted and annoyed with Rod Blagojevich that day and wasn't paying close enough attention to the call.

"You're sitting in a coffee shop with your wife and you're having the most fateful conversation of your life, you don't know it's being taped and it's going to change the direction of your life," Robert Blagojevich said. "I wish I would have paid more attention to my brother that day, to really understand what he was communicating."

He insists he never would have passed on a quid pro quo for the Senate seat.

"I never would have tied fund-raising with a governmental act and sure as hell not tie with some guy buying the damn Senate seat," he said. "No way."

The case cost Robert Blagojevich nearly $1 million, he said. In contrast, Rod Blagojevich used $2.8 million from his campaign fund on his first trial.

The biggest challenge since his 2008 arrest, he said, was taking the witness stand.

"There was nothing tougher than getting in the zone knowing that the guy who's asking questions wants to trip me up and put me in jail," he said. On the second day, he was growing tired.

So on a break, he wrote a note on a yellow sticky paper that said "Stay focused!" and took it up to the stand.

From the stand, he saw an FBI agent take out a sticky note of his own, walk over to prosecutors and point up to Robert. They complained to Ettinger, his lawyer: "He's not supposed to have any notes up there."

Ettinger walked over to the witness stand, looked at the note, then stuck it to his forehead. He walked back over to prosecutors.

"This is what he had up there," Ettinger told him. "It was to remind himself to stay focused."

Robert Blagojevich said that only made him grow more incensed.

"That's what our tax dollars do. To hurt a guy who's up there fighting for his life, to take away any little lifeline he's got to keep himself focused and do his job that day," he said, leaning forward in his chair. "It's just infuriating."

Still, he shook the prosecutor's hand after he was through, saying they had both survived as warriors.

"He looked at me with a startled look, shook my hand and said: 'Thank you.' And then he called me a liar the next day."

Robert Blagojevich plans on celebrating with a victory party over the weekend and then will travel to the Northwest with his wife, Julie.

As for his brother's next trial, he vowed not to turn on the former governor.

"I would never testify against him," he said. "I've got nothing bad to say about him."