You probably haven’t been wondering how former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is holding up in federal prison. You’re probably just happy that a jury found him guilty of conspiracy to solicit bribes and a host of other counts related to a brazen effort to sell President Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat.
Just in case you have been wondering, though, Friday marked the one-year anniversary of the disgraced Democrat’s incarceration. Blagojevich’s family says that he has been whiling away his time in the hoosegow by teaching history to other inmates, reports the International Business Times.
“He teaches a class on the Civil War,” Blagojevich’s wife, Patti, told the world on her Facebook page on Friday.
“He is surviving — trying to make the best of an untenable situation,” she also wrote.
Patti Blagojevich explained that her husband’s absence has been especially hard on the couple’s two daughters. Birthdays, music recitals, driving tests and even mundane moments can be trying.
“Unfortunately, those moment[s] have been stolen from my children and there is no getting them back,” she wrote.
Patti Blagojevich added that Blagojevich’s nuclear family has visited him “many times” over the past year.
The former governor’s home away from home while he serves his 14-year sentence is the Federal Correctional Institution, Englewood, a low-security federal prison for male inmates located some 15 miles southwest of Denver.
Provided that he doesn’t win an appeal currently in the works, Blagojevich must serve at least 85 percent of his term. That works out to almost 12 years.
In addition to his newfound role as a pokey professor, Prisoner No. 40892-424 stays in shape by running extensively on the quarter-mile track inside the prison walls.
As so many prisoners seem to do, Blagojevich has also picked up the guitar, according to his wife.
Other notable prisoners at FCI Englewood include Enron’s former president Jeffrey Skilling and Orange County, California’s former sheriff Mike Carona. Skilling is serving a 24-year sentence related to securities fraud and insider trading. Carona is serving a 66-month sentence for witness tampering.
It is unknown whether Skilling or Carona are pupils in Blagojevich’s course on the Civil War.