Federal prosecutors scoffed at an 11th hour allegation from Rod Blagojevich’s attorneys that former lobbyist and Blagojevich pal John Wyma had cut a secret deal with the government to save his own skin by testifying against the former governor.
Defense lawyers based their allegation on information from Tony Rezko, who they said had revealed Wyma’s own corrupt activities before the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board. They alleged that prosecutors effectively stopped investigating those alleged crimes, when Wyma agreed to aid them in taping Blagojevich in the fall of 2008.
“The defendant claims there is new evidence,” prosecutor Reid Schar wrote in court papers filed today. “There is nothing new at all.”
Schar goes on to say that Blagojevich and his lawyers have had reams of documents for years pertaining to the FBI interviews with Wyma, as well as others questioned as part of the same investigation.
“As the defendant must surely know, having reviewed those materials, there was nothing to substantiate the allegations against Wyma. Indeed, given the many statements made by (Blagojevich) denigrating the credibility of the source of the allegations, Antoin Rezko, it is odd for the defendant to suggest that somehow the unsupported word of Mr. Rezko had significant meaning in this case.”
Wyma’s attorney Zachary Fardon has likewise denied that any deal existed between prosecutors and his client.
A hearing on the matter is set for Friday before Judge James Zagel.
