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.

Rod Blagojevich Scandal

Rod Blagojevich Scandal, Lawyers didn’t invent the insanity defense for guys like Rod Blagojevich, but it may soon come in handy. As recently as last month, the leather-jacket-wearing Illinois governor imagined himself as a potential candidate for President in 2016. Meantime, he said, he wouldn’t mind getting a Cabinet post, an ambassadorship or even a high-paying corporate gig. Driving these fantasies was his statutory power to name a replacement for former Senator Barack Obama — a power that to Blagojevich seemed like money in the bank. “I’ve got this thing, and it’s f______ golden,” he told an aide a day after the November elections on a home phone that was tapped by the FBI. “I’m just not giving it up for f______ nothing.”

Blagojevich, 52, was either delusional, stupid or some combination of both. The feds had been on his case for years, and he knew it. Early on the morning of Dec. 9, federal Marshals woke him up with a predawn phone call, then arrived at his front door and handcuffed him shortly thereafter. By the afternoon, he stood in a Chicago courtroom looking like a common criminal, his feathered hair out of place, his executive wardrobe replaced with a black-and-blue Nike tracksuit. He faces the prospect of 30 years in prison on charges of conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud and soliciting bribes. (Read TIME’s top 10 political lines of 2008.)

His alleged crimes were as outrageous as his inflated sense of self, the sort of behavior we expect of Hollywood villains, not Midwestern governors. He was accused not just with conspiring to solicit bribes but with conspiring to solicit bribes from the next President of the United States. He was accused not merely with planning extortion but with trying to force the Tribune Co. to fire editorial writers in exchange for a tax break worth about $100 million. According to authorities, he even threatened to revoke millions in funding for a Chicago children’s hospital if its CEO did not pay his campaign a $50,000 tribute. The full buffet of alleged graft was laid out in a 76-page federal complaint that described the sort of corruption superheroes battle in comic books.

And as is often the case in graphic novels, there was no time for the hero to lose. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald began wiretapping the governor in mid-October and by mid-November could hear that Obama’s old seat was being auctioned to the highest bidder. Fitzgerald feared that the longer Blagojevich remained as governor, the more likely he would name someone to replace Obama in exchange for a bribe. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant, as Justice Brandeis said,” explained Robert Litt, who served in the Justice Department under Bill Clinton. “By bringing this all out into the open, Fitzgerald is making the assumption that nobody would dare cut a deal with Blagojevich now, and he himself will be deterred from making one. And if he is stripped of his power to make the appointment, all the better.”

The Blagojevich scandal will prove to be a distraction for Obama, a Chicago pol made good who was hoping to put old-fashioned Chicago politics in his rearview mirror. The criminal complaint produced no evidence that Obama or his aides have done anything wrong. Blagojevich was, in fact, recorded complaining that Obama’s people were “not willing to give me anything except appreciation.” Obama himself maintains that he never talked to Blagojevich about the Senate seat, and during the recent campaign, the two men kept their distance from each other.

But the President-elect’s political universe overlaps uncomfortably with the Illinois governor’s seamy world of swagger, cussing and kickbacks. Obama’s new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, once boasted that he and Obama had worked closely with Blagojevich on his 2002 election, which was billed as a reformist campaign — a claim that Obama aides deny and Emanuel has since retracted as “wrong.” As recently as 2006, Obama told a reporter he had concerns about allegations of corruption involving state Democrats, though he added that he would be “happy” to work to support the governor’s re-election bid.

Jesse Jackson Jr.’s Wife

Jesse Jackson Jr.’s Wife, The wife of U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. said she and her husband have undergone marital counseling and spiritual therapy since he told her nearly two years ago of an extramarital affair.

“He said it was over. I was mortified and in agony, but he knew if I found out any other way it would be over. That the only way to save our marriage was to come clean,” Chicago Alderman Sandi Jackson said in an interview published in Sunday editions of the Chicago Sun-Times. “There were sleepless nights and I started losing hair and I told him I would only consider staying if we got into therapy.”

She said she immediately questioned herself and whether it was her fault, but she never wanted details. When word of the affair became public last week, she said it was like opening the wound again.

Jesse Jackson Jr., a Democrat, has been dogged by corruption allegations in connection with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich since December 2008, shortly after Blagojevich was arrested.

Last week, more allegations surfaced that Jackson told a businessman to offer Blagojevich $6 million in exchange for an appointment to Barack Obama’s former U.S. Senate seat. The businessman also told the FBI he purchased plane tickets for a woman identified as a “social acquaintance” of Jackson.

Jackson, who has not been charged with a crime, has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in connection with Blagojevich.

He didn’t, however, deny allegations of an affair with the “social acquaintance” and called it a “personal matter between me and my wife that was handled some time ago.”

Messages left for Jackson on Sunday by The Associated Press weren’t immediately returned.

In the interview, Sandi Jackson acknowledged empathy for her husband, who she said “has been quiet, withdrawn and concerned.”

“It’s been surreal. I feel bad for Jesse because he is living this thing all over again. He is remorseful over this fire storm he’s created around us,” she said.

She also said her husband never had an intention of running for Chicago mayor and is instead gearing up for re-election in his congressional district covering parts of Chicago’s South Side and south suburbs.

The congressman, who first won election in his district in 1995, previously said he’s been mulling a run for mayor since Mayor Richard Daley announced earlier this month that he wouldn’t seek a seventh term.

The Jacksons have been married since 1991 and have two children.

Sandi Jackson said she could never anticipate how she would feel when her husband told her of the affair.

“You know, when the Clintons ran into marital trouble, I thought Hillary should leave Bill,” she said. “I couldn’t stand what Tiger Woods did and how his wife had to suffer publicly.

“But when the ‘beast’ lands at your door, it can be a very, very different experience. No one really knows what they are going to do until they are in that situation. When it happens to you it’s amazing how what you once thought was black and white becomes variations of a color called gray.”

Jackson, who has been alderman of her South Side ward since 2007, said for now she wants to stay focused on her job and children.

She said there are people who have had far worse situations.

“Mine is a matter of the heart,” she said. “For many it’s a matter of survival. My heart will heal.”

Rod Blagojevich

Rod Blagojevich, Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich told a federal court Wednesday that he made “terrible mistakes” and is “unbelievably sorry” for his crimes. His emotional statement was a dramatic departure from his insistence on his innocence since his arrest three years ago. U.S. District Judge James Zagel is preparing to sentence him for 18 felony corruption convictions.

“I am responsible,” Blagojevich said, apologizing for his actions and his earlier assertions that he was unjustly targeted by prosecutors. Before he spoke Assistant U.S. Attorney Reid Schar said in court that Blagojevich’s actions “corrupted the decision-making process” in the state and called the former governor corrupt and manipulative.

Federal prosecutors have asked the judge to sentence Blagojevich to 15 to 20 years in prison; defense lawyers have said that would be too harsh.

The court took a short recess after Blagojevich made his remarks. Zagel is expected to announce just how long he will spend behind bars when court resumes.

Blagojevich described explaining his guilty verdicts to his two young daughters and apologized to his family for the pain he has caused them.

“I have nobody to blame but myself for my stupidity,” he said.

Blagojevich ended his remarks by asking for the judge’s mercy.

In two trials, Blagojevich, a Democrat elected to two terms as governor, was found guilty of trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat once occupied by Barack Obama, shaking people down in exchange for campaign contributions and lying to federal agents.