From the State Journal Register

Ryan vows to fight charges
Attourney says he needs 15 months to prepare defense
By MIKE RAMSEY
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
CHICAGO - Former Gov. George Ryan on Tuesday pledged to fight a string of corruption charges leveled at him by federal prosecutors, as his defense attorney predicted it would take 15 months to prepare for a lengthy, expensive trial.
Ryan entered a plea of not guilty in court and later read from a prepared statement. It was the former governor's first public comment since he was indicted last week, but only his attorney, Dan Webb, took questions from reporters.
The 69-year-old Kankakee Republican cited his three decades of state service and denied he would dishonor the trust of voters "who elected me election after election." He chided federal authorities for conducting an "intrusive and overbearing investigation" - a reference to the 51/2-year Operation Safe Road probe that began by examining low-level corruption under Ryan in the secretary of state's office before eventually indicting him.
Ryan is the 66th defendant charged in the investigation, which plagued his final years in office.
"I'm going to fight, I'm going to fight hard," Ryan said during a news conference at the Loop law offices of Webb's prominent firm, Winston & Strawn. "I will not plea bargain - I'll go to trial and establish my innocence.
"And as I await my trial," Ryan added, "I'll rely on the support of my family, my deep faith in God and my abiding trust in the judicial system."
A 91-page, 22-count indictment issued Dec. 17 accuses Ryan of racketeering conspiracy, mail and tax fraud and making false statements to federal agents. The criminal acts allegedly occurred during his two terms as secretary of state and single term as governor, a period covering 1991-2003.
Prosecutors say Ryan allowed a businessman friend, co-defendant Larry Warner, to reap $3 million from fixing contracts and leases and from extorting vendors in the secretary of state's office. Also, Ryan over the years allegedly tried to conceal $167,000 in payments, gifts and other benefits to himself and his family, including raids on his political campaign fund.
Webb, a former federal prosecutor, said U.S. attorneys have "cobbled together" more than 30 separate incidents that aren't criminal acts. He suggested some of the acts involved the normal intersection of politics and government.
Jurors rejected a similar legal strategy in the previous racketeering trial of Ryan's campaign fund and former top aide, Scott Fawell. Both were convicted earlier this year.
Webb said he would need until March 2005 to prepare for Ryan's trial, which he estimates could last as long as six months. He said Ryan would hold private fund-raisers to pay his legal fees.
"His legal fees will not be paid for by his personal assets. He has no personal assets," Webb said. "He could not begin to personally afford to hire lawyers that could go through a six-month trial with all the effort it's going to take to fight the federal government."
Defense attorneys for Warner, who originally was indicted in May 2002 in an earlier version of the case, are pushing for a Feb. 23 trial date. Prosecutors oppose severing the cases.
Ryan arrived Tuesday morning at the Dirksen Federal Building with his wife, Lura Lynn Ryan, and navigated through a mob of reporters and camera crews. He was impassive during his brief arraignment hearing and answered, "I do, your honor" in his well-known baritone voice as U.S. Northern District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer asked him a series of routine questions.
Webb entered the not guilty plea on behalf of Ryan, who at times directly faced lead federal prosecutor Patrick Collins. After the hearing, Ryan was fingerprinted and photographed, according to a spokeswoman for Chicago-based U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
Ryan is free on a $4,500 unsecured bond.
Among the Ryan supporters who were present in court was legal scholar Lawrence Marshall, the director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law. The organization exposed flaws in the state's death-penalty system and helped influence Ryan to commute the death sentences of condemned prisoners to life in prison before he left office in January.
"What I'm dismayed about is the public and the press's treatment of this, as if the jury came back with a stinging conviction," Marshall said after Ryan's arraignment. "Charges are just that - they're charges. You and the press, the public or I have no idea what the evidence is yet. And ultimately it won't be for us to decide, it'll be for a jury to decide."
Ryan halted executions in early 2000 after 13 Illinois prisoners were found to have been wrongly sentenced to die. He has spent part of his retirement at speaking engagements and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
The former governor's next court date is Jan. 16, when Judge Pallmeyer could decide whether to sever his case from Warner's.
If convicted, Ryan faces several years in prison, fines and the loss of his state pension beyond his own contributions.
Webb's firm is chaired by former Gov. James Thompson, for whom Ryan served as lieutenant governor. In a preface to his remarks, Ryan thanked Thompson and Jeremy Margolis, Ryan's longtime attorney.
Webb said Margolis is not formally involved in the defense.