You Can't Make This Stuff Up, Illinois Division

Remember Rod Blagojevich, the former Governor of Illinois? Former because he was arrested on a nice array of corruption charges, which included an attempt to auction off the Senate seat formerly held by President Obama?

The jury hung on 23 of 24 counts, convicting him on one. The judge has declared a mistrial in those 23 counts, and he will be retried on them.

And just in case you don't remember Blago, here are the relevant bits from today's Times report on the verdict:

On Dec. 9, 2008, Governor Blagojevich, then in his second term, was awoken around dawn at his Chicago home and arrested. Federal prosecutors accused him of turning his state office into a criminal enterprise to benefit himself, citing what they said were brazen efforts to get political contributions in exchange for legislation to help a local pediatric hospital, state funds for a school, a law to benefit the horse track industry and, most infamously, for Mr. Blagojevich’s choice to fill Mr. Obama’s Senate seat.

Government agents had secretly recorded some 500 hours of telephone calls with Mr. Blagojevich and his advisers, and a portion of those recordings became a crucial element of the prosecution’s case.