From the Associated Press

Fawell helped feds in other cases, prosecutors say

Associated Press
Posted Tuesday, March 13, 2007

A onetime aide to former Gov. George Ryan not only testified against his old boss but provided information in five other federal public corruption investigations, prosecutors said Monday.

Prosecutors furnished fresh details of Scott Fawell’s cooperation in court papers urging U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer to chop six months off of his 6¨-year racketeering and bid-rigging sentence as a reward.

Fawell, 45, was Ryan’s chief of staff in the Illinois secretary of state’s office for eight years and managed his 1998 campaign for governor. He was convicted of racketeering in March 2003 and pleaded guilty to bid-rigging in September 2004 in exchange for a deal with the government.

Besides testimony against Ryan and longtime Ryan friend Larry Warner, Fawell provided “debriefings relating to at least five non-Warner/Ryan investigative matters involving public corruption,” prosecutors disclosed.

Ryan, 72, was governor from 1999 to 2003 and retired amid a scandal over payoffs and other governmental corruption. He was convicted in April 2006 of racketeering and other offenses. Prosecutors said he steered state contracts to Warner and other associates, covered up drivers license bribery and used state money and state workers to operate his campaigns.

In exchange for Fawell’s testimony at Ryan’s trial, prosecutors agreed to recommend a deal for his fiancee and former administrative assistant, Andrea Coutretsis, who had pleaded guilty in two corruption cases.

Prosecutors also agreed to recommend that Fawell’s bid-rigging sentence run concurrently with the 6¨-year racketeering term he was serving, and agreed to ask Pallmeyer to cut the sentence by six months.

Prosecutors did not say which public corruption investigations Ryan discussed with them other than the one involving Ryan.

“Over this approximate three-year period defendant has provided substantive information to the government in excess of 50 debriefing and trial preparation sessions, including providing information on a pending investigative matter as recently as Nov. 27, 2006,” the prosecutors said.

They asked Pallmeyer if, instead of coming to Chicago for the hearing at which his sentence might be cut, Fawell could participate via closed-circuit TV from the federal correctional center at Yankton, S.D.

According to the government, Fawell’s “out date” from Yankton is July 2009. But the proposed cut would get him out faster, as might other unspecified credits that he might have earned while behind bars.