from the Tribune: 
 
Aide says he never traded campaign cash for low-digit plates 
 
By Mike Robinson 
The Associated Press 
Published October 18, 2005, 2:43 PM CDT 
 
 George Ryan's onetime top aide told jurors in the former governor's racketeering and fraud trial Tuesday that he never promised anyone a low-digit license plate in exchange for campaign money but sometimes turned down such requests to punish uncooperative state lawmakers. 
 
 "There was no requirement that someone had to contribute to CFR (Citizens for Ryan) to get a low-digit plate — isn't that true?" defense attorney Dan K. Webb asked Scott Fawell, who was Ryan's chief of staff in the secretary of state's office before his 1998 election as governor. 
 
 "That is correct," Fawell testified. 
 
 Prosecutors say the plates were doled out to campaign contributors and other supporters, and Fawell has previously testified they were all but impossible to get without political clout. 
 
 Ryan, 71, and lobbyist friend Larry Warner, 67, are charged in the 22-count indictment with racketeering, mail fraud and other offenses. The issue of favoritism in awarding license plates is a small issue in an indictment that accuses Ryan of handing out big-money state leases and contracts to an elite group of insiders while getting free vacations and assorted other gifts. 
 
 Fawell is testifying for the government as part of a deal that he hopes will get him a break when he is sentenced in a bid-rigging case after the trial. But much of his testimony on cross examination has suggested Ryan knew little of the corruption he is accused of engineering. 
 
 Webb asked questions designed to paint the awarding of low-digit plates as a harmless custom and not part of a network of corruption in the secretary of state's office. 
 
 He got Fawell to say that he spent only about 10 minutes a month on deciding who would get such plates and that he rarely turned anyone down. 
 
 Fawell said that those turned down were mainly members of "the General Assembly, primarily because they were not supportive of something we needed." 
 
 Before Ryan's 1990 election as secretary of state a Ryan friend in DuPage County secured a $75,000 loan for the campaign and 10 months later got a low-digit plate, Fawell acknowledged. 
 
 But he suggested the two things were not related. 
 
 "Did you ever tell anyone that if they contributed money to CFR you would guarantee that you would get them a license plate?" Webb asked. 
 
 "Never," Fawell said. He said he had no reason to believe Ryan did, either. 
 
 Earlier, Fawell testified that a shakeup in the secretary of state's office that prosecutors say was designed to hide corruption was instead intended to save money and create accountability. 
 
 Fawell said he merged the inspector general's department with the secretary of state's police because the inspector general, Dean Bauer, was fighting cancer and out of touch with the day to day workings of the department. Fawell testified that agents were "freelancing" and causing disruptions. 
 
 Bauer, a former Kankakee police chief, later was convicted of obstruction of justice and sent to prison. He admitted that he had spent seven years covering up the very corruption that he was expected to investigate. He said he did so to spare Ryan political embarrassment. 
 
 In explaining why he merged the two departments, Fawell said: "I asked the question, 'What's going on here?' and Dean didn't know." 
 
 Webb led Fawell through a memo in which he said that putting the inspector general's function in the hands of the police would save money and make for greater accountability. 
 
 It didn't come up in court, but at the time Fawell was sidetracking Bauer, inspector general's agents were clamoring to investigate a highway disaster that occurred when a part fell off a truck, struck a van and ignited a fire that left six children dead. 
 
 The truck driver later took the Fifth Amendment when asked how he got his driver's license but his boss testified that he believed the license was among several he had bought with bribe money at the secretary of state's McCook drivers testing station. 
 
 The death of the six children ultimately triggered the government's seven-year Operation Safe Road investigation of bribes swapped for drivers licenses that led to Ryan's indictment. 
 
 Prosecutors have traced thousands of dollars in bribe money to the campaign fund maintained by Citizens for Ryan, which in turn has been convicted of racketeering and is now disbanded.