From the Associated Press
Theater owner sent Ryan thank you checks

November 3, 2005

BY MIKE ROBINSON ASSOCIATED PRESS

A prominent suburban theater owner testified Thursday that he sent thousands of dollars in checks to George Ryan and his relatives as Christmas gifts and a thank-you gesture for providing him with low-digit license plates, but not as a payoff.

"He wasn't a personal friend but he was so good to me," Anthony DeSantis, the 91-year-old owner of the Drury Lane Theater, testified during the former governor's racketeering and fraud trial.

DeSantis said he has been getting low-digit license plates-- "hundreds of 'em"-- for decades for himself, his relatives, his friends and even his cook. Secretaries of state such as Charles Carpentier, Paul Powell and Mike Howlett helped him get low-digit plates, he testified.

Democrat Alan Dixon was much less help, he said.

DeSantis said he sent $2,000 to Ryan in 1997 out of gratitude for low-numbered plates, characterizing the checks as campaign contributions even though they were written to the then-secretary of state personally, his wife, his son and his daughter-in-law-- not his campaign.

He said he later sent more $500 checks because Ryan "was so good to me by giving me license plates and it was Christmas time and I thought the least I could do was thank him in a small way by sending him a check."

Ryan, 71, is charged along with lobbyist friend Larry Warner, 67, with racketeering, mail fraud and other offenses. They have pleaded not guilty and deny doing anything illegal.

The license plate issue has nothing to do with Warner. Federal prosecutors say handing out low-digit license plates in return for money was an abuse of office.

Ryan's attorneys scoff at the notion that DeSantis bought his low-digit plates.

"At no time did you ever give George Ryan a gift or contribution to his campaign for the purpose of bribing him?" Ryan defense attorney Bradley E. Lerman asked.

"That's correct," DeSantis, who wears tinted glasses, said in a deep, gravel voice.

Many people believe that license plates with only a few numbers on them signify the importance of the driver, suggesting an acquaintance with powerful, high-ranking officials.