Patti Blagojevich still hopeful, despite ‘crushing’ news

Patti Blagojevich says it’s “crushing” that her husband, Rod Blagojevich, is not on the list of commutations President Barack Obama released Thursday on his final day in office.

But the state’s former first lady is still refusing to give up hope that the president will show mercy to her family.

“Not on the list of 330 that was released today,” Patti Blagojevich wrote on Facebook. “Don’t know if he is done yet. I’m so disappointed for Rod, and this is so hard on my girls. Even though I try to tell them not to get their hopes up, it is still crushing.”

The former governor is serving a 14-year sentence in a Colorado prison on federal corruption charges.

Sneed is told Patti and the couple’s two daughters, Annie and Amy, who have visited the former governor many times since his incarceration, were in Colorado visiting him at his minimum prison facility recently.

Both daughters wrote letters to Obama on behalf of their father, asking the president to “let him come home to take care of his family.”

“I talk to my dad almost every night, but it is so hard to stay connected to him,” Annie wrote. “I know you have two daughters that are close to our ages. My dad is a good father, and he loves us so much. I known you can imagine how it would be to be separated from them for so long.”

Amy wrote that, even in the more than 4½ years her father has been in prison, “I haven’t gotten used to this ‘new normal.’ ”

“I hope you can see that he’s suffered far beyond what most in his situation have and my family, thus, has too,” she wrote.

Reached in Florida, former powerful Ald. Dick Mell, who is Patti’s father, told Sneed: “Look, I have an agreement not to talk publicly about this because I love my daughter very much. I just want the best for her and this is very hard on the family.”

Contributing: Sam Charles