Former Illinois Governor Enters Prison

A defiant Rod Blagojevich headed to a federal prison in Colorado on Thursday to begin a 14-year sentence on charges that included attempting to sell the Senate seat that once belonged to President Obama.

“I’m leaving with a heavy heart, a clear conscience and I have high, high hopes for the future,” he told reporters, well-wishers and others.

The Associated Press offered a glimpse of the former governor’s life in the years ahead. —ARK

AP via The Guardian:

Inside, Blagojevich’s life will be strictly regimented. The ex-governor — who was heard on the FBI wiretaps scoffing at the idea of earning a low six-figure salary — will work a menial prison job, possibly cleaning bathrooms or doing landscape work, starting at 12 cents an hour.

Guards take a half dozen head counts a day, including several overnight, and Blagojevich will be told what to do rather than give orders to sycophant aides, as he did while Illinois’ top executive.

“He’s going to be doing a lot of, ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir,’” said Jim Laski, a former Chicago city clerk sentenced to two years in prison for corruption in 2006.

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AP / Ed Andrieski

With his attorneys at his side, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, center, arrived Thursday at the Federal Correctional Institution Englewood in Littleton, Colo., where he began serving a 14-year sentence for corruption.