Rod Blagojevich
Rod Blagojevichi (born December 10, 1956) is a former American politician who served as the 40th Governor of Illinois from 2003 to 2009.
A Democrat, Blagojevich was a State Representative before being elected to the United States House of Representatives representing parts of Chicago. He was elected governor in 2002, the first Democrat to win the office since Dan Walker's victory 30 years earlier. In 2009, he became the first Governor of Illinois in history to be impeached and removed from office.
In March 2012, Blagojevich began serving a 14-year sentence in federal prison following conviction for corruption including the solicitation of bribes for political appointments, including the 2008 vacant U.S. Senate seat of then-President-Elect Barack Obama, while in public office.
Early life
Blagojevich was born in Chicago, Illinois, the second of four children. His father, Radislav, was an immigrant steel plant laborer from a village near Kragujevac, Serbia. His mother, Mila Govedarica, is a Bosnian Serb originally from Gacko, Bosnia and Herzegovina (then also a part of Yugoslavia before its dissolution). His parents moved to Chicago in 1947. Blagojevich has a brother, Rob, who worked as a fund-raiser for Blagojevich in his later political career. Blagojevich spent much of his childhood working odd jobs to help the family pay its bills. He was a shoeshiner and pizza delivery boy before working at a meat packing plant. In order to afford university costs, Blagojevich worked for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System as a dishwasher.