Another lawyer departs from Rod Blagojevich's defense team 

The legal defense team for indicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is once again looking for another attorney to join the fight against federal criminal charges.

The defense needs to rehire a fourth lawyer because Giel Stein has quit the team just weeks after joining it. After a court hearing on Wednesday at which Judge James Zagel accepted Stein's exit from the case, Stein said in an interview that he couldn't comment on his departure because it related to privileged information in the case. U.S. v. Blagojevich, No. 08-888.

Stein was hired to oversee the document review work of six pretrial contract lawyers sifting through the 3.5 million pages of evidence that federal prosecutors have handed over to the defense in the political corruption case. Stein came on board in June after Zagel permitted the use of Blagojevich's campaign funds to hire a fourth lawyer specifically for the pretrial work.

Attorneys for former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich were in federal court today. And for one of them, it was his final appearance on the case.

When Giel Stein was hired to join the Blagojevich defense team last month, his fellow attorneys said he'd be the quarterback; that he would be the one overseeing the process of going through the millions of pages of documents U.S. Attorneys have filed in the former governor's corruption case.

But today, federal judge James Zagel approved Stein's motion to be dropped from the case. Stein says he's prohibited from talking about why he quit. He did say, however, that it had no connection to a separate case he defended last year, which resulted in a Cook County judge fining Stein and sending documentation to an attorney disciplinary review board. Stein has no public record of any disciplinary action against him and he is listed as being in good standing with the state.