From the Tribune: 
 
Staffers bid Ryan $12,500 farewell 
Defense makes case for wads of cash 
 
By Matt O'Connor and Rudolph Bush 
Tribune staff reporters 
Published February 7, 2006 
 
 In his last weeks as governor in late 2002, George Ryan was given about $12,500 in cash as a Christmas gift by dozens of employees, Ryan's longtime secretary acknowledged Monday in testimony at Ryan's corruption trial. 
 
 The testimony by Vicki Easley followed her disclosure last week that Ryan received several thousand dollars in cash stuffed in a Christmas card from employees each year during his dozen years as secretary of state and governor. 
 
 The defense put on the testimony to answer a prosecution charge that Ryan mysteriously carried wads of cash but rarely made bank withdrawals. But prosecutors have questioned if the employee cash gifts at Christmas had been solicited. 
 
 Ryan's written notations on the Christmas cards indicate he received a combined $9,175 in cash from employees from 1995 through 1998 and in 2001, according to evidence at Ryan's corruption trial. There were no records available for 1999 or 2000, authorities said. 
 
 In December 2002, with Ryan scheduled to leave the governor's office a few weeks later, records admitted into evidence at trial show that 174 people, mostly staffers, gave Ryan $12,525 in cash that Christmas alone. 
 
 In questioning Easley on Monday, Assistant U.S. Atty. Joel Levin pointed out that a log book compiled during Ryan's years as governor kept track of gifts as minor as Hawaiian pineapples and Girl Scout cookies. 
 
 But the thousands of dollars in cash gifts from the employees weren't logged in the gift book, Easley acknowledged. 
 
 Gifts, not cash, go in book 
 
 "So no matter how small the gift was, it goes in the gift book and people get thank-you letters, right?" Levin asked. 
 
 "Yes," Easley said. 
 
 "But in terms of cash, no matter how big it was, there was no record of it in the gift book, right?" Levin asked. 
 
 "Correct," Easley said. 
 
 Ryan's use of cash has been a key dispute in the trial. Bank records show he withdrew only $6,700 cash in nearly a decade--circumstantial evidence, prosecutors argue, that his heavy cash spending came from kickbacks from co-defendant Lawrence Warner and other friends to whom he steered state business. 
 
 Easley testified that each year, she or Ryan's executive assistant would take the cash Christmas gifts to a bank and convert the money into larger denominations. 
 
 Cash in small wad 
 
 "Was the purpose of that so that the wad of cash would not be as thick? Was that the idea there?" Levin asked. 
 
 "Correct," Easley said. 
 
 "So it would be a more manageable wad of cash?" the prosecutor asked. 
 
 "Yes," she said. 
 
 With the 2002 Christmas gift that totaled $12,500, records showed that many staffers had given $100 apiece to Ryan. 
 
  That contradicted Ryan's claim in FBI interviews in 2000 and 2001 that he had a personal ban against accepting cash gifts of more than $50. The former governor is accused of repeatedly lying to federal authorities in those interviews. 
 
 Easley, who worked for Ryan for nearly 28 years, said he never told her of the gift limit and never asked her to return any of the Christmas cash gifts. 
 
 Through his questioning, Levin tried to suggest that Easley hadn't been forthcoming in testifying before a federal grand jury in April 2003, just four months after Ryan received the last of the Christmas cash gifts from employees. 
 
 Asked before the grand jury if she had a clue as to where Ryan got his cash, Easley said, "No, I don't." 
 
 At the same grand jury appearance, Easley testified about cashing three or four Social Security checks for Ryan but didn't mention numerous expense-reimbursement checks that have become an issue in the trial. 
 
 "This was the first time that I had been questioned by the grand jury," Easley said Monday. "I was very nervous, and it did not come to mind." 
 
 When Levin pointed out she had actually testified twice before to the grand jury, Easley said, "I misunderstood." 
 
 Easley said she didn't know why cash gifts weren't logged in the governor's gift book. 
 
 The defense tried to characterize the $12,500 as different than the earlier Christmas gifts Ryan received. 
 
 A `farewell gift' 
 
 Timothy McCaffrey, a Ryan lawyer, called the 2002 money a "farewell gift." 
 
 "Wasn't this essentially a last goodbye from people who had worked with and cared for George Ryan for those years?" McCaffrey asked. 
 
 "It was a gift to him for all his years of service and a personal thank-you," Easley said. 
 
 Under questioning Monday by McCaffrey, Easley said she was unaware of any law that required that Ryan keep a gift book as governor. 
 
 McCaffrey tried to suggest that giving gifts of cash to bosses was common at Christmas in the business world, but U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer agreed with the prosecution that those questions were irrelevant. 
 
 The prosecution had made much of the fact that Ryan had taken cash gifts from low-level employees, including a janitor named Don Skoda. 
 
 "Do you know whether Mr. Skoda genuinely liked George Ryan?" McCaffrey asked. 
 
 "Yes," replied Easley. 
 
 O'Malley testifies 
 
 In other testimony Monday, former Cook County State's Atty. Jack O'Malley denied that Ryan crudely told him to back off investigating secretary of state employees prior to a 1992 news conference. 
 
 Called by the defense, O'Malley said he had no specific recollection of the events but that he would have remembered if Ryan asked him to protect employees from criminal charges. 
 
 "That never happened, did it?" asked Dan Webb, Ryan's lead lawyer. 
 
 "That never happened," O'Malley said. 
 
 The testimony contradicted that of former Cook County prosecutor Patrick Quinn, who said then-Secretary of State Ryan cursed O'Malley for offering an idea to curb corruption among secretary of state employees. 
 
 "[Expletive] you, Jack. These are my guys," Quinn quoted Ryan saying. 
 
 On cross-examination by the prosecution, O'Malley conceded that it was possible that Ryan could have uttered an expletive and said he didn't need help running his office. 
 
 Ryan, who served as secretary of state from 1991 to 1999, is charged with gutting that office's internal investigative arm because of inquiries its agents made into the sale of Ryan fundraising tickets by employees 
 
 Recollection changed 
 
 Outside of court Monday, O'Malley said he discussed the conversation with Quinn six months ago and that Quinn's recollection was entirely different then. 
 
 "I asked him what in the heck is this all about and he said, `You wouldn't remember this,'" O'Malley said. "I said, `How could I not remember this?' He said, `This was insignificant.'" 
 
 Quinn declined comment Monday. 
 
 O'Malley, who was elected state's attorney as a Republican in 1990 and served until 1996, acknowledged in court that he considers Ryan a friend and that he came to know him through former Gov. James Thompson. Thompson is chairman of Winston & Strawn law firm, which is defending Ryan free of charge. 
 
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