AP via Tribune: 
 
Ex-Ill. Governor Going on Trial for Fraud 
 
By MIKE ROBINSON 
Associated Press Writer 
Published September 19, 2005, 5:45 AM CDT 
 
 CHICAGO -- Although his former campaign committee, campaign manager and chief of staff have been found guilty of racketeering, former Gov. George Ryan vows he'll be acquitted when he goes to court to face 22 charges stemming from a federal probe. 
 
Federal prosecutors think differently. They have accused the Ryan administration of doling out big-money state contracts and leases to political insiders, resulting in charges being brought against 79 people, including many state employees. 
 
Ryan and his co-defendant, lobbyist Larry Warner, are due in court Monday for jury selection in their trial. 
 
Ryan, who won accolades from capital punishment critics by clearing the state's death row before he left office in 2003, faces 22 charges of racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud, lying to the FBI and tax fraud. He has maintained his innocence. 
 
"They haven't got one witness that said they gave me a corrupt dollar or they paid me off in any fashion with money," the 71-year-old Republican said in a July interview with Chicago's WGN-TV. 
 
The charges grew out of the federal government's Operation Safe Road, which initially focused on bribes exchanged for drivers licenses but over seven years expanded into a full-blown investigation of political corruption when Ryan was secretary of state and later governor. 
 
Of the 79 people charged, 73 have been convicted and none acquitted. 
 
Ryan's former chief of staff, Scott Fawell, who is now serving a 6 1/2-year sentence, is penciled in as the government's leadoff witness and prosecutors say he could be on the stand for as long as three weeks. 
 
Ryan was elected secretary of state in 1990, served two four-year terms and was elected governor in 1998. But he retired after just one term as the so-called bribes-for-licenses scandal grew and his support in opinion polls took a swan dive. 
 
"He was basically unelectable by the time he made the decision not to run," said University of Illinois-Springfield political scientist Kent Redfield. 
 
Just before leaving office, Ryan commuted the sentences of all 167 Illinois death row inmates to life and pardoned four men convicted of murder, saying evidence against them was unconvincing. He had earlier put a hold on state executions, citing a flawed system that sent 13 wrongfully convicted men to death row. 
 
Some death penalty opponents now stand by his side. 
 
"My assessment is that the government case relies entirely on witnesses of extremely dubious credibility whose testimony has been procured under extreme coercion," said Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University law school. 
 
At the core of the indictment is an allegation that Ryan gave Warner all but free reign to see that leases and contracts in the secretary of state's office went to Warner's clients. Millions of dollars for computers, license plate stickers, laminated strips for vehicle titles and a digital drivers licensing system were awarded this way, according to prosecutors. 
 
Warner, in turn, funneled two loans totaling $145,000, one of which was never paid back, into the foundering business of a Ryan family member, prosecutors claim. They say that Warner pumped $6,000 more into a Ryan family business and paid more than $3,000 in Ryan family wedding expenses while furnishing other unspecified money and gifts to his political benefactor. 
 
Ryan declined to discuss the trial with The Associated Press. 
 
"It's one of those things that's happened. We'll see how it all comes together," he told the AP in a recent interview.