Blagojevich wants 100 tape excerpts heard in court

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Lawyers for former Gov. Rod Blagojevich filed their second pretrial motion in less than a week on Monday — this one asking a judge to let them play around 100 excerpts of secret FBI recordings at the ousted politician’s upcoming corruption retrial.

The motion says the tapes from before Blagojevich’s 2008 arrest show he tried to cut a legal political deal to name Attorney General Lisa Madigan to President Obama’s vacated U.S. Senate seat.

Blagojevich is set to face a retrial in April on 23 charges, including allegations he sought to sell or trade an appointment to Obama’s former Senate seat.

Jurors at Blagojevich’s first trial deadlocked on all but one count, convicting him of lying to the FBI.

Monday’s court filing says Blagojevich’s repeated references to Madigan in the recordings counter prosecutors’ assertions that talk of a Madigan deal was a ruse to obscure other bids by Blagojevich to profit personally.

In a motion filed Monday afternoon in response, prosecutors accused Blagojevich’s lawyers of rehashing spurious arguments with the possible aim of wanting to influence potential jurors.