At a status hearing in Chicago today, a judge determined that political fixer Tony Rezko will be sentenced in January for the crimes he committed working with Rod Blagojevich. The sentencing date means Rezko would be unlikely to testify during the former governor's retrial on corruption charges, which is scheduled to begin in April.

Rezko, meanwhile, plans to file an appeal motion related to honest services laws that partly underpinned his 2008 conviction. The U.S. Supreme Court has limited the use of a federal fraud law -- favored by white-collar crime prosecutors -- that targets public officials or corporate executives accused of scheming to benefit themselves at the expense of the public or their stockholders.