Rod Blagojevich 14 Years

Rod Blagojevich 14 Years, The Chicago home of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is serving a 14-year prison sentence, has been taken off the market, a family spokesman said.

Glenn Selig said the “upheaval” of Blagojevich’s March 15 departure for a federal prison in Colorado has made showing the house too stressful for wife Patti and the couple’s two daughters, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday.

The 3,800-square-foot Mediterranean-style home was originally put on the market for $1.07 million in October but the price was later dropped to 998,000.

The couple purchased the home in 1999. It has five bedrooms, four baths, three fireplaces, a library, a music room and a 2,200-foot gym in the basement.

The house received national exposure as the backdrop for Blagojevich’s final news conference before he went to prison for his conviction on corruption charges.

Federal Correctional Institution Englewood

Federal Correctional Institution Englewood, It may be hard to imagine Rod Blagojevich looking anything but boyish in his trademark dark, helmet hair. But his longtime barber said Wednesday that the former Illinois governor has been dyeing his hair for years and now that he is in prison – where dyes are banned – it will soon turn gray.

Peter Vodovoz, Blagojevich’s Chicago-area barber for two decades, told The Associated Press the 55-year-old has dyed his hair himself, but with no dye available at his lockup, the last color masking his gray will fade within three months.

“His hair will turn gray, like Jay Leno’s,” Vodovoz said, speaking a week after Blagojevich entered a federal prison outside Denver to serve his sentence on corruption charges.

Hair dyes are strictly banned in the Federal Correctional Institution Englewood because inmates could use them to disguise their appearance in attempted escapes, prison spokesman John Sell said.

Vodovoz, who last cut Blagojevich’s hair a month ago, offered his prison-bound client advice he may have difficulty taking: He told him not to fret about his hair behind bars because no cameras will be around to document his changed appearance.

“‘There’s no media, so don’t worry,’ I told him,” he said. “Who’s going to care?”

The two-term governor was closely identified with and parodied for his thick helmet of hair. A comedian on Saturday Night Live once joked that when FBI agents came to arrest him in 2008, Blagojevich asked for five minutes to pack his things – and for eight hours to comb his hair.

Rod Blagojevich

Rod Blagojevich, Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s Ravenswood Manor home is off the market. The 3,800-square-foot Mediterranean-style home got national exposure two weeks ago as the backdrop for Blagojevich’s final news conference before he headed to federal prison in Colorado to begin a 14-year sentence.

But the “upheaval” of Blagojevich’s recent departure has made it too stressful for his family to entertain offers on the house, and Patti Blagojevich, the state’s former first lady and listing agent, has temporarily taken it off the market, a family spokesman said Monday.

“Patti believes it’s best for (daughters) Amy and Annie to avoid the stress of showing a house during a time which has already been filled with so much upheaval,” spokesman Glenn Selig said in a statement. “Showing the home is just too much for the girls to go through right now.”

The house went on the market in October for $1.07 million, thought the price was later dropped to $998,000 — about double what the Blagojeviches paid when they bought the house in 1999.

The house, which sits on a 50-foot-wide corner lot, has five bedrooms, four baths, three fireplaces, a library, a music room and a 2,200-square-foot gym in the basement.

When it went on the market, Patti Blagojevich said the family no longer could afford to stay in the home, and Rod Blagojevich has noted his financial struggles since his 2008 arrest as a reason the couple took the unusual step of appearing on reality TV shows while he was awaiting trial.

The house was the scene of multiple news conferences by the former governor as he battled corruption charges, and in a recent TV interview, Patti Blagojevich recalled the morning in 2008 when FBI agents marched her husband out of the house. Blagojevich later was required to post the house, and a condo in Washington, as bond while he awaited sentencing.