From the Chicago Sun-Times 
 
Mark Brown 
 
Ryan's banking might just be ahead of his time 
 
January 22, 2006 
 
BY MARK BROWN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST 
 
I know we're supposed to be moving toward a cashless society, at least I've been hearing that for a long time, even if I keep spending more and more of mine. But did you see the number that came out of the George Ryan trial this past week about how much cash he and his wife withdrew from their checking and savings accounts over a nearly 10-year period? 
 
 $6,703.08 
 
 That's their combined total from June 1993 to December 2002, as calculated by an IRS agent who reviewed the couple's bank records. 
 
 If I'm doing the math correctly, that's an average of just $13.56 a week in cash, although weekly is not necessarily the best way to look at it because the couple made just eight cash withdrawals from the bank during that entire time. 
 
You'd think that the Ryans were already living in that cashless society, that is, that's what you'd think if you'd missed all the other testimony about how the former governor lived well and was known to carry a ready supply of cash, which he would spend at casinos and nice restaurants or slip to his adult daughters a few large bills at a time as gifts. 
 
Easy come, easy go 
 
 On one hand, it's evidence of nothing really. 
 
But it sure gets people to talking, doesn't it? 
 
 You can see where a roomful of jurors might start chewing on that bone, as a friend and I did Friday over lunch. 
 
 They might, for instance, try to calculate how much cash they go through in a week, as it got me to doing. 
 
 Even though the advent of the debit card has somewhat reduced my use of cash, I'll confess that I still probably go through at least $100 weekly. That would come to $5,200 a year. 
 
 Nearly half of that goes toward lunch downtown every weekday, along with ordering pizza every Thursday night when it's my turn to "cook." I'm sure there are many ways in which George Ryan lives more frugally than I do, but if I were a juror it might gnaw at me that while he was lunching regularly at Lino's during those years, I was growing my own potbelly at such joints as Gold Coast Dogs and Ricobene's and still managing to take out more cash than him. 
 
Explanation will be interesting 
 
 Or the jurors might get hung up on the eight cash withdrawals in nearly 10 years. I think I used to make eight ATM withdrawals in a week before the fees caused me to plan a little better. But the Ryans never used an ATM even once during that entire period, which doesn't mean anything either except it makes you wonder how they did acquire cash. 
 
 Maybe the jurors will take a walk down memory lane. Does anybody remember when you had to get somebody to cash a check if you needed money, which you did need, because not as many places accepted credit cards? I know. I'm a fossil. But it wasn't that long ago. I used to cash so many checks that I still know my driver's license number because of always having to write it down as a means of identification. I wonder if Ryan knows his driver's license number. 
 
 There may be a logical explanation for Ryan's banking habits. I look forward to hearing it when he puts on his defense, which is expected to start soon and include testimony from the former governor himself. 
 
 Ryan's lawyers have already put forth one explanation, which is that his campaign fund would cash his expense reimbursements checks for him. The IRS agent found seven such checks totaling about $11,500, although she conceded the campaign records are incomplete. Another witness testified he cashed campaign checks more frequently. 
 
Warner a dough machine 
 
 That still leaves you wondering how Ryan paid for the expenses in the first place. Charges to the campaign fund's credit card were billed directly to the fund. 
 
As I said, Ryan's cash habits are evidence of nothing -- unless a jury is willing to combine it with evidence that Ryan steered lucrative business deals to pals who took care of him. 
 
 Prosecutors want the jurors to come to the conclusion Ryan financed his lifestyle with cash bribes from his co-defendant, Larry Warner, who was paid millions of dollars from Secretary of State leases and contracts that they contend Ryan helped steer to him. 
 
 They've heard a lot of circumstantial evidence that points them in that direction, but nobody who has said they witnessed such a transaction taking place. 
 
 Next week, prosecutors plan to put on evidence Warner withdrew $144,000 in cash in one year alone. 
 
 I guess nobody ever told him about this becoming a cashless society.