Former Ryan aide testifies he was told to give pal special treatment
Ex-deputy chief of staff says he was instructed to keep Warner happy
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
By Mike Robinson
The Associated Press

A member of the Illinois Commerce Commission testified Tuesday that when he was George Ryan's deputy chief of staff he was told to provide special treatment and "do whatever you could do" for a close Ryan friend who was lobbying on behalf of state vendors.

Kevin Wright said that he took extra steps to keep lobbyist Larry Warner happy, even phoning a landlord who was getting rent from the state and assuring him his lease would be renewed.

Warner, who was the landlord's lobbyist, was conferenced in on the call.

"I agreed to do it," Wright told Ryan's racketeering and fraud trial.

He said that Warner and other lobbyists including Ryan friend Ron Swanson spent so much time hanging around the secretary of state's office that staffers had a hard time doing their work.

Ryan, 71, and Warner, 67, are charged with racketeering, mail fraud and other offenses. The federal indictment says that when Ryan was secretary of state he steered big-money state leases and contracts to his friends, including Warner and Swanson, and received gifts and free vacations.

Ryan and Warner say that nothing they did was illegal.

Wright, a graduate of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, served as an aide to former Gov. James R. Thompson and later joined Ryan's staff.

He was deputy chief of staff when Ryan was secretary of state and after his election as governor in 1998. Ryan later rewarded him with a seat on the ICC — which sets the telephone, natural gas, electricity and other utility rates for Illinois consumers.

Wright, who is still a member of the ICC, testified under a letter from prosecutors granting him immunity from prosecution for anything that he might say on the stand.

Under cross examination by Ryan attorney Bradley E. Lerman, Wright did testify that he never saw Ryan take a bribe and considered him an honest official.

That irked prosecutors who said that the questions were so broad that they should now be allowed to ask Wright about a time when Ryan asked him to prod state officials to expedite payments to a state vendor in which Ryan's brother, Tom, had a financial interest.

The company, Comguard, specialized in electronic monitoring systems for prisoners and had a contract with the Illinois Department of Corrections, according to prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer has barred such questions thus far.

Wright said that as soon as he joined Ryan's secretary of state's office he called chief of staff Scott Fawell and asked him how to handle Warner who was already asking favors.

"He said he was a close friend of the secretary," Wright said. "He said to be courteous, answer questions and do whatever you could to help him out."

Wright said Warner and other Ryan friends had "walking around rights" in the secretary of state's office and didn't need an appointment to see the secretary, he said.

He said Swanson could be seen often using the telephones or passing the time on the couch.

Wright also said that he mentioned to Fawell that members of Ryan's "kitchen cabinet" were proving a distraction to the staff and their rights to hang around the office should be curbed.

After Ryan's election as governor, Wright testified, he warned new chief of staff Robert Newtson that Swanson was again proving a distraction to the staff.