Rod Blagojevich's Narrow Escape: Ex-Illinois Gov. Guilty on 1 Count
Aug. 18, 2010 — -- A lone juror may have saved former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich from a conviction on the most serious corruption charge of conspiring to trade or sell President Obama's vacated Senate seat, according to a juror in the case.
Juror Erik Sarnello, 21, of Itasca, Ill., told "Good Morning America" that a female juror would not be swayed by the overwhelming majority and kept the jury deadlocked at 11-1 on three key counts related to the Senate seat -- conspiracy to commit extortion, attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit bribery.
"There were major, fundamental different ideas and views on what we were seeing in the evidence," Sarnello said. "We would play a phone call and one side would say, that supports, right there, he's guilty, and the other side would say, that means he's not guilty."
Sarnello said the holdout "wanted to see that clear cut evidence that we knew just wasn't there for her."
The jury found Blagojevich, 53, guilty on a lesser charge of making false statements to the FBI, but could not reach a verdict on the remaining 23 counts including racketeering, bribery, and conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud.
The jury deadlock is a major setback for federal prosecutors, who are pushing for a new trial as early as this fall. Blagojevich's defense team plans to appeal the one guilty verdict of lying to the FBI -- a conviction which carries a maximum prison term of five years.
The ousted governor is likely to serve a few months to a year in prison on that conviction, according to legal experts. Blagojevich is free on bond pending a retrial.
The verdict came after 14 days of what Sarnello described as tense jury deliberations.
"We came to deliberation with a lot of emotion and it did get heated in the beginning," he said. "We realized that people would get a little more offensive and shutdown."
Sarnello, who voted guilty on all three of the charges related to the sale of Obama's Senate seat, largely felt the prosecution proved its case, but said he did vote not guilty on a few counts.
"I couldn't make the connections...I didn't feel the government proved the case on that one," he said.
Jury foreman James Matsumoto, 66, voted guilty on all charges against Blagojevich and his brother, Robert Blagojevich, who escaped conviction.
"The people that [believed he was] not-guilty were adamant," Matsumoto told ABC News affiliate WLS in Chicago. "I thought the government proved its case in my opinion."
