Because the charges against Blagojevich are criminal and made by the U.S. Department of Justice, they are (so far) on a wholly different order from allegations about the Colemans that were made by private plaintiffs in a pair of civil suits from October.

The dissimilarity, however, ends approximately there. In both cases, the charges are that illegal payoffs to the elected official would be masked as payment of work performed by the wife. The monetary amounts are in the same ballpark: Laurie Coleman’s company received $75,000 and was to be paid $25,000, while the salary proposed for Patricia Blagojevich ran as high as $150,000.

One difference: In the Colemans’ case, payments — which haven’t been shown to be illegal, and whose propriety Sen. Coleman has insisted on — were actually made, not just talked about during wiretapped conversations.

Another: No incriminating quotes have surfaced from Laurie Coleman (or really any comments at all), whereas Patricia Blagojevich is alleged to have uttered such extortionary bon mots as, “[tell Deputy Governor A] to hold up that fucking Cubs shit … Fuck them.”

Here is how U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald described in a press release the allegations against Blagojevich that involve his wife that are contained in the criminal complaint and accompanying FBI affadavit:

Blagojevich discussed … placing his wife on paid corporate boards where he speculated she might garner as much as $150,000 a year …

Blagojevich repeatedly discussed the … the financial and political benefits he and his wife could receive if he appointed various of the possible candidates. …

Blagojevich also allegedly spent significant time weighing the option of appointing himself to the open Senate seat and expressed a variety of reasons for doing so, including … facilitating his wife’s employment as a lobbyist …

Blagojevich, his wife, [his chief of staff who was also arrested Tuesday, John] Harris, Governor General Counsel, Advisor B and other Washington-based advisors participated at different times in a two-hour phone call in which they allegedly discussed, among other things, a deal involving the SEIU.

Here are allegations concerning Laurie Coleman contained in the first of two lawsuits filed against Nasser Kazaminy (a Coleman benefactor and family friend) and the Texas firm he controls, Deep Marine Technologies, Incorporated (DMT):

… Kazeminy told Mr. McKim [former CEO of DMT] that he [Kazeminy] would make sure there was paperwork to make it appear as though the payments were in connection with legitimate transactions, explaining further that Senator Coleman’s wife, Laurie, worked for the Hays Companies (”Hays”), an insurance broker in Minneapolis, and the payments could be made to Hays for insurance. …

Hays provides risk management, insurance, and employee benefits consulting. It is also the employer of Senator Coleman’s wife, Laurie, who is an aspiring actress and holds no insurance licenses in the State of Texas. Kazeminy informed Messrs. McKim and [former DMT CFO B.J.] Thomas that Hays would funnel the money from DMT to Senator Coleman through the payment of compensation to his wife, Laurie, and that there was nothing to worry about. Laurie Coleman never provided any type of services or products to DMT …

Specifically, Defendants breached their fiduciary duties by: (1) directing improper payments to Hays for the benefit Senator Norm Coleman [sic] and his spouse for no legitimate business purpose …

Here is what Coleman had to say on Oct. 10 about allegations that his wife’s income from her job was in fact a form of payment to him:

In recent days, outrageous questions and insinuations have been lodged against my wife about her employment. My wife’s job has been disclosed as required under the ethics laws of the United States Senate. My wife is a certified and licensed insurance agent –- she works for a living –- and her employer is pleased with her work, and she is pleased with her job. And that’s all anybody is entitled to know. Questions about my wife, about my children, about their private lives, jobs, work and school are just that: private. And they will remain that way.

Late Tuesday, the Coleman campaign — which is already embroiled in the ongoing statewide recount in the senator’s re-election bid against Democrat Al Franken — issued this official statement about reports of an FBI probe in the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

We are not aware of any investigation that is under way, nor have we been contacted by any agency with respect to this matter. As we have said repeatedly, we welcome any investigation of these lawsuits by the appropriate authorities to get to the bottom of these baseless, sleazy and politically inspired allegations.