For Colorado neighbors, Blagojevich just another inmate

EFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — Outside the walls of the federal prison here, say the name Rod Blagojevich and you get only the slightest hint of recognition.

Blagovich? Blagonavich?

"You mean the one who didn't do it," a local bartender said sarcastically in reference to Blagojevich's refusal to admit wrongdoing. "I don't know what he didn't do. But he didn't do it."

Some here recall the broad strokes of the crimes that will bring Blagojevich on Thursday to the Federal Correctional Institution Englewood in this sprawling suburban Denver neighborhood. Some know about the attempted sale of a U.S. Senate seat, others just that he was a crooked politician.

Either way, his arrival has not caused much of a stir.

"It don't bother me none," said Harold Topping, 85, standing outside his home near the edge of the prison property. "He ought to be in prison, that sucker. He's a Chicago thug. It will suit him very much."

FCI Englewood, a campus of low-rise tan buildings and open fields, is tucked into an unincorporated neighborhood of Jefferson County about 15 miles southwest of Denver. Although named Englewood and often referred to as Littleton, it isn't in either nearby town.

It is home to a low-security prison, where Blagojevich will serve his 14-year sentence for corruption, as well as a minimum-security prison camp.

It backs up to houses and ball fields, across the street from a school and off a busy intersection that could be in any Chicago suburb with its late-afternoon traffic congestion.

A neat and tidy enclave of newer homes sits just across a two-lane road to the south, a statuesque guard house at the entrance to Englewood visible from the quiet streets. To the east and west of the prison, there are older homes.

The snow-capped Rockies line the western horizon.

And of course, there is Colorado wildlife, including coyotes, foxes, and playful prairie dogs that pop in and out of the dusty dirt fields near the prison entrance.

Neighbors interviewed this week don't seem to give the prison much attention. They recall stories of inmates who made a run for it — though that hasn't happened in years, they said. Or the time a kite blew across the fence and was promptly returned by a prison employee.

When Penny Isenburg's family moved to the area in 1972, the prison across Kipling Street was the only institution in the area.

"It was just all by itself out here," said Isenburg, standing in her backyard.

Since then more homes and a high school have been built, she said.

Golf courses have also sprung up around the prison — so close that golfers can see the inmates exercising, said Donald Rosier, a Jefferson County commissioner.

"It is very reflective of the people, not only of Jefferson County but of Colorado," said Rosier of his constituents' feelings about the prison. "We have a fairly relaxed lifestyle."

Isenburg, 50, recalled that when she was a child in the 1970s, her sister arrived home from school to find an inmate sitting on the neighbor's slanted roof. He was soon recaptured by prison officials.

"One climbed up the smokestack," said her father, Elmer Nichols, 82. "He just wanted to look at the mountains."

Topping, who lives on the other side of the prison, is separated from the grounds by a small golf course.

A few years ago Topping's nephew set out for a jog around the golf course and somehow wound up in a running group — of inmates.

"That was real funny," Topping said. "He said he noticed everybody had the same color jogging suit."

A whistle of a guard ended his nephew's run with felons, and he was escorted off the property.

Beginning Thursday for Blagojevich, much of these new surroundings — the traffic, the scampering prairie dogs, ball fields, golf courses and mountains — will at once be so close yet so far away.

"I don't guess he'll get to get out and play much golf," Nichols said.