The Chicago police declared today that the death of former Rod Balgojevich fundraiser Christopher Kelly was a suicide. The Times reports:
[Kelly] had pleaded not guilty to the indictment, but had been due later this week to begin serving a prison sentence in a separate federal conviction on fraud and tax charges. Mr. Kelly had tried to commit suicide last Tuesday, hours after pleading guilty to the fraud charges, said the police chief, Regina Evans, at a news conference at the police station in Country Club Hills. In his second attempt, he was found late Friday in his car in a remote section of the suburb, and died Saturday at a local hospital.
Blagojevich's reaction:
“He fessed up to the things he did wrong, but what he was not going to do was to do what he was being urged to do, and that is to tell lies about me to reduce his sentence. And I believe that when he faced what he was facing, in his despair, it would appear that, sadly, he took his own life.”
Nice. Fortunately:
While Mr. Kelly’s death has become a matter of much attention among many who have followed Mr. Blagojevich’s situation, at least one former federal prosecutor said the events seemed unlikely to affect the government’s case against the former governor."