From the SJ-R:

Ryan's lease negotiator testifies
Esslinger talks about Lake Calumet building deal

By MIKE RAMSEY
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

Published Tuesday, November 01, 2005

CHICAGO - A retired property manager for former Secretary of State George Ryan testified Monday he was directed in late 1996 to help move a Lake Calumet licensing bureau to a building owned by Harry Klein, who allegedly treated Ryan to Jamaican vacations.

James Esslinger of Springfield, who negotiated leases for Ryan's office at the time, said a supervisor gave him a photograph of a South Holland property and instructed him to assess its suitability. Normally, when a new location was needed, Esslinger said his department would identify and research three sites before sending information up the chain of command for a final selection.

"We were looking for the best building and for the best dollar amount that we could get," Esslinger said under questioning from assistant U.S. attorney Joel Levin as Ryan's federal racketeering trial entered its sixth week.

Klein's south suburban property was being considered as a replacement for a driver's license bureau in Lake Calumet, even though there were no problems with the existing location, Esslinger said. The secretary of state's office was renting the property for $72,000 annually under a five-year agreement from 1995, but leases typically had a termination clause allowing the landlord or tenant to pull out with 90 days notice, the witness told jurors.

When Esslinger and subordinates inspected the South Holland site, a former hair salon, they met with the son of property owner Klein, he testified. Esslinger said he had problems with the property being along a frontage road because it did not provide direct access off a major street. Also, he said, the landlord would need to acquire more property so that truck drivers could be tested for commercial driver's licenses there.

Esslinger said he and his staff were told not to look at other sites or ask the Lake Calumet property owner for a new offer.

Prosecutors say the elder Klein was a friend of Ryan's and invited the politician to his vacation home in Jamaica yearly. In re- turn, Klein allegedly swayed Ryan to support a fee increase for license plate renewal stickers sold at Currency Exchanges - Klein was an owner - and to steer the South Holland lease for him.

The Ryan-Klein deals allegedly were part of a pattern of corruption during the Kankakee Republican's 1991-1999 tenure as secretary of state and his later 1999-2003 term as governor. Ryan's co-defendant, Chicago lobbyist Larry Warner, allegedly shook down vendors and manipulated leases with Ryan's approval. Both are accused of racketeering conspiracy and mail fraud, among other charges, in a 22-count indictment.

Esslinger's testimony about the South Holland lease continues today at Ryan's trial in U.S. District Court.

Earlier Monday, retired Springfield lobbyist Robert Cook finished recounting a 1991 conversation he had with Ryan over Cook's concerns that advisers of the politician, including Warner, were soliciting one of Cook's clients for money to help push a computer contract in the secretary of state's office. Ryan said he looked into the matter and concluded his advisers had done nothing wrong, according to Cook.

But the experience changed his longtime friendship with Ryan, Cook said under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon.

"I felt I couldn't trust him anymore," Cook said as Ryan sat nearby in the courtroom. Ryan, 71, did not noticeably react to the statement.