From the NYT:
Ex-Governor of Illinois Is Convicted on All Charges
E-Mail
Print
Save
By MONICA DAVEY and JOHN O'NEIL
Published: April 17, 2006
CHICAGO, April 17 — George Ryan, the former governor of Illinois who
drew international notice by emptying his state's death row, was
convicted today of all charges brought against him in a sweeping
federal corruption case.Tannen Maury/European Pressphoto Agency
George Ryan, left, his son George Ryan Jr., center, and his wife Lura
Lynn Ryan, right, arriving today at the U.S. District Courthouse in
Chicago, Illinois.
Multimedia
Video: Governor Ryan Is Convicted
Related
Text: Indictment (U.S. v. Warner, Ryan) (pdf)
After more than five months of sometimes complicated testimony in his
federal case, and after five weeks of still more tangled
deliberations, a jury convicted Mr. Ryan, a Republican, of granting
state business to associates in exchange for cash and presents for
himself, his family and his friends.
He faces a sentence of up to 20 years for racketeering, the most
serious of the charges brought against him.
Mr. Ryan, who served one term as governor until 2003 and as the
secretary of state before that, had been seen as an old-fashioned
Illinois politician, more dealmaker, complete with cigar and a
cocktail, than ideologue. In its way, then, his case seemed to put
this state's brand of politics on trial, asking jurors to do the
difficult work of drawing a firm line between what was a crime and
what was just another day in Springfield.
"At his core, George Ryan is quintessential Illinois politics:
power-oriented, jobs-winning, control kind of politics," said Kent
Redfield, a professor of political science at the University of
Illinois in Springfield. "There is an excess here, but this is not a
bad person corrupting a good system. He is clearly a product of what
is a very broad political culture here."
At 72, Mr. Ryan, once a pharmacist from Kankakee, an hour south of
Chicago, faces as many as much as 20 years in prison.
Outside of this state, Mr. Ryan is best known for his finding, in the
final 48 hours of his term as governor, that the state's capital
punishment system was broken; he was later nominated for a Nobel Prize
for commuting more than 160 death sentences. But in this courtroom,
witnesses and lawyers were barred from mentioning Mr. Ryan's stance on
the death penalty before the jurors.
Mr. Ryan's co-defendant, his friend, Lawrence K. Warner, 67, was also
convicted on all counts. He was accused of receiving commissions from
leases and contracts with Mr. Ryan's office.
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney who built the case
over eight years, called the verdict gratifying but the widespread
corruption that it revealed "disturbing."
"Mr. Ryan steered contracts worth millions of dollars to friends and
took payments and vacations in return," Mr. Fitzgerald said. "When he
was a sitting governor, he lied to the F.B.I. about this conduct and
then he went out and did it again."
But Mr. Fitzgerald said the most appalling part of the corruption was
Mr. Ryan's reaction upon learning that bribes were being paid for
licenses, putting public safety in jeopardy. Instead of ending the
practice he tried to end the investigation that had uncovered it, Mr.
Fitzgerald said, calling the moment "a low-water mark for public
service."
Mr. Ryan spoke briefly to reporters afterward, saying he was
"disappointed" in the verdict.
"I believe that this decision today is not in accordance with the kind
of public service I provided to the people of Illinois over 40 years,"
he said. Asked what he would do next, he said, "I'm going to see my
wife."
The head of Mr. Ryan's legal team, Dan K. Webb, a well-known former
prosecutor here, said he would seek to have the verdict overturned and
would appeal if that failed.
Mr. Webb said his motions would focus on the "unusual developments
that occurred during the past five weeks of jury deliberation," much
of which he said was currently under seal.
Two members of the jury, which heard testimony over five and a half
months from 83 witnesses and were ultimately given 148 pages of
instructions from the court, were removed days after deliberations
began, when The Chicago Tribune revealed that they had arrest records
they had failed to disclose in questioning at the start of the trial.
Two alternate jurors replaced them.
More questions emerged last week about a third juror, who was said to
have revealed information about deliberations to her dry cleaner, but
no further changes were made to the jury after Judge Rebecca R.
Pallmeyer conducted a brief inquiry into those matters.
Jurors who spoke to reporters after the verdict declined to discuss
the controversy over their deliberations. They declined to single out
any single factor that led to the conviction, although one juror,
Denise Peterson, said that she was impressed by testimony of state
employees who worked under Mr. Ryan when he was secretary of state,
"describing the details that put us here."
Mr. Ryan's lawyers had painted him as a hands-off manager of the
office, which mostly handles driver's licenses.
"I didn't buy it," said another juror, Todd Rein. He described his
impression after listening to all the testimony as a "feeling that
things were not on the up and up."
Though Mr. Ryan is the highest ranking official, a range of other
former state workers, business leaders and others have been charged
and in the federal investigation known as "Operation Safe Road,"
started by Mr. Fitzgerald, who has recently become better known as the
prosecutor in the Valerie Plame leak case in Washington.
The conviction is likely to keep a spotlight on questions of
corruption, in a year in which many state offices are up for election,
even as separate investigations continue into the administrations of
leading Democrats here, including Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich and Richard
M. Daley, the mayor of Chicago.
Republicans, who had controlled the governor's office since the
1970's, have blamed Mr. Ryan for their recent struggles, as well as
for Mr. Blagojevich's victory four years ago, but the issue is
unlikely to disappear now, even with Mr. Ryan's conviction. In the
Republican primary election for governor this year, one opponent's
commercial focused on old film footage of Judy Baar Topinka, now the
party's nominee, dancing a polka with Mr. Ryan at an event years ago.
In the trial, which began last September, federal prosecutors
portrayed Mr. Ryan as having been corrupt from his days in the
secretary of state's office, to his time as governor.
The prosecution said Mr. Ryan and his family got fancy vacations,
money and other items worth at least $167,000, and in return offered
special political favors and state business in the dozen years that he
served in the state's top roles.
"You've heard of 12 days of Christmas," Joel Levin, a federal
prosecutor, said in closing arguments. "This was 12 years of Christmas
for Ryan, Ryan's friends and his family. In short, Ryan sold his
office. He might as well have put a for sale sign on his office."
But Mr. Ryan's lawyers said he never broke the law.
"There are times when George Ryan did as a public official try to help
people who were his supporters," Mr. Webb said in his closing
argument. "But there's nothing wrong with that. It's not a crime."
Monica Davey reported from Chicago and John O'Neil from New York for
this article. Gretchen Ruethling contributed reporting from Chicago.