Peoria Journal Star
Ryan's legacy up for grabs as trial begins
Former governor charged with federal corruption; jury selection starts Monday in Chicago
 
Sunday, September 18, 2005
By Mike Ramsey
of Copley News Service
CHICAGO - George H. Ryan Sr. will always be known as the 39th governor of Illinois. The next four months will determine whether he also is remembered as a convicted felon.
Beginning this week, the 71-year-old Kankakee Republican will stand trial on federal corruption charges that stem from his two terms as Illinois secretary of state and single term as governor, a period covering 1991 to 2003. Selection of an 18-member jury, including six alternates, is scheduled to begin Monday at Chicago's high-rise federal courthouse in the Loop.
In the coming days, jury members will be flooded with evidence. A team of assistant U.S. attorneys will introduce a procession of witnesses - many of them granted immunity from prosecution - and unveil documents. The evidence will be designed to prove Ryan was involved in racketeering schemes that rewarded his cronies with state contracts and leases while he and his family received illegal gifts, cash and other perks.
Ryan also is accused of mail and tax fraud and lying to federal agents.
"I think it will serve as a cautionary tale," Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, said of the proceedings, which will generate intense media coverage. "It's a human tragedy. You see somebody who's fallen from a position of great power as a result of some penny-ante corruption - and some big corruption."
Prosecutors say Ryan also allowed private adviser Larry Warner of Chicago, his co-defendant in the case, to steer secretary of state contracts and leases for his own profit. Both Ryan and Warner have pleaded innocent to charges within a 22-count indictment that was handed up nearly two years ago. The longtime friends are represented by separate legal defense teams.
It is the first time in more than 30 years that a former governor has gone to criminal trial for alleged misdeeds in office. In 1973, Democrat Otto Kerner was convicted of bribery in connection with shares of racetrack stock he received while he was the state's chief executive.
The retired Ryan probably will testify, his lead defense attorney, Dan Webb, has said. The ex-governor has appeared in recent television interviews to tout his record in office, including his 2000 moratorium on executions in Illinois and the subsequent clemency he granted to condemned prisoners. Ryan also has suggested no government witness will be able to say he ever took a "corrupt dollar."
"He lives off his pension - that's how he supports himself and his family," Webb said. "He's not someone that accumulated great wealth during his years in public life."
Much of the government's conspiracy case and the identities of potential witnesses have been foreshadowed in court documents, including a 114-page "proffer" filed by prosecutors and released early this year. In it, Ryan is accused of helping to cover up the "licenses-for-bribes" scandal that spurred the 1998 federal investigation into the secretary of state's office that eventually widened to entangle him.
Some lower-level secretary of state employees traded commercial driver's licenses for cash because they felt pressured to raise money for Ryan's political campaign fund. Ricardo Guzman, an improperly licensed truck driver, was involved in the fiery 1994 highway accident that injured parents Duane and Janet Willis and killed their six children.
"It was on Ryan's watch, so he is ultimately responsible in one way or another, in our opinion," Willis family attorney Joe Power said. "Every office he held was a cesspool of corruption. Whatever he did, he expanded on, and that's why there are so many charges."
A central part of the government's racketeering case is a series of alleged incidents in which Warner shook down companies that sought to provide products or services, such as renewal stickers for license plates and digital-format driver's licenses, to the secretary of state's office. Ryan is accused of using his influence to take care of friends as they provided him and his family with benefits that the politician concealed.
The government's star witness is Ryan's former top aide and campaign manager, Scott Fawell, who was convicted in 2003 of racketeering along with Ryan's now-defunct campaign organization. Once defiant, the former right-hand man is serving a 6 1/2 year prison sentence and has said he is cooperating with the feds to help his fiancee, Andrea Coutretsis, who was indicted in a separate corruption case.
"They're going to send her to prison and take her away from her kids unless he testifies," said Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law. "They've subjected him to a modern form of torture."
Warden said he is critical of the government's use of immunized witnesses. He is among admirers of Ryan who feel that jurors should get a broader picture of the former governor, especially his efforts to reform the death penalty in Illinois. Warden's organization supported Ryan's mass commutation of death-row inmates in January 2003.
Citing flaws in the capital-justice system and previous botched cases, Ryan ordered the condemned prisoners to instead serve life sentences without parole - a nationally publicized action that earned accolades as well as criticism.
"We get very few honest, decent men in politics," Warden said. "And then when we get one, we treat them like this."
U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer ruled that Ryan's policy decisions about capital punishment cannot be explored at trial because they're unrelated to the fraud charges against him. Potential jurors will be screened about their knowledge of Ryan and their opinions of him.
Even with such precautions, Chicago defense attorney Steven Miller says some jurors will remember and approve of Ryan's death-penalty stance when they ultimately gather for deliberations. A hung jury could result, he said.
"In all likelihood, what the defense is trying to do here is to get one or two jurors out of the 12 who refuse to convict," said Miller, a former assistant U.S. attorney who specializes in white-collar criminal cases. "Given the breadth of the charges, that would be a significant defense win. It's an uphill battle as far as an actual acquittal."
Opening arguments in the case could begin later this week. The entire trial is expected to last up to four months. Court will be in session Monday through Thursday each week.