Blago to feds: Forget about a plea deal

CHICAGO, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich says federal prosecutors can forget about offering a plea agreement to avoid retrying him on corruption charges.

Blagojevich said he wasn't interested in such a offer and criticized prosecutors who won only one conviction of the 24 charges against him, MSNBC reported Friday.

"I'm absolutely very determined to seek vindication," Blagojevich said on NBC's "Today" show Friday during his first live television after a Chicago jury convicted him of lying to the FBI. "I have done absolutely nothing wrong. This is a persecution by a prosecutor who for six years tried to persecute me."

Blagojevich has insisted he was only acting as a politician and never intended to gain financially from his position. He was charged, among other things, with trying to sell President Barack Obama's former Senate seat for personal financial gain.

He also challenged prosecutors to release all of the evidence they had against him, including tapes from the days leading up to his December 2008 arrest. Blagojevich said the tapes would reveal the hard work he says he was doing to try to create jobs and generate revenue for the people of his state.

The jury, after two weeks of deliberations, found Blagojevich guilty on Tuesday of lying to federal agents, but were deadlocked on all 23 of the other, more serious, charges brought against him. Eleven of the 12 jurors reportedly voted to convict Blagojevich of trying to sell the Senate seat, but one juror held out under the belief that he was only talking politics.