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Ex-governor charged with racketeering
By MIKE ROBINSON/Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO -- Former Gov. George Ryan has been charged with presiding over more than a decade of corruption involving millions of dollars in state contracts as well as tax fraud, lying to federal agents and skimming cash out of his own campaign fund.
But prosecutors say the 22-count indictment Wednesday that could send Ryan to prison for years is anything but the final chapter in the 5 1/2-year investigation of Illinois corruption.
"This investigation will continue aggressively, passionately and fairly, and we will take this evidence wherever it leads," lead prosecutor Patrick M. Collins said.
Prosecutors already say they are preparing a fresh indictment focusing on corruption at Chicago's Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority -- known as McPier -- when it was headed by Ryan's former chief of staff and campaign manager, Scott Fawell, who is now serving a 6 1/2-year prison sentence on related corruption charges.
Another team of prosecutors is looking into allegations that legislative staff members did campaign work on state time when Rep. Lee Daniels, R-Elmhurst, was Republican leader.
And prosecutors say there's no telling where the leads may take them eventually.
The investigation that ensnared Ryan began as a probe of bribery in the secretary of state's office. The indictment alleges Ryan worked to sabotage that probe by essentially dismantling the inspector general's office when he was secretary of state.
The 91-page indictment charges that for more than a decade, as secretary of state and then governor, he took payoffs, gifts and vacations in return for letting associates profit off state contracts and leases. One lobbyist friend allegedly collected $3.1 million.
"What we're alleging in the indictment is basically that the state of Illinois was for sale," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said.
Ryan did not return a telephone call for comment and no one answered the door Wednesday evening at his home in Kankakee, where lights from Christmas decorations and television news cameras lit up the yard.
Chief defense counsel Dan K. Webb issued a statement saying he was confident Ryan "will be exonerated and a jury will find him not guilty of all charges."
Ryan, 69, a hearty-voiced onetime Kankakee drug store owner, carved out an international reputation in the governor's office as a leading critic of the death penalty.
"He has achieved worldwide renown as the only governor in the history of our nation to have the courage to reform a state's broken-down death penalty system that was putting innocent people on death row," Webb said.
Detractors said Ryan adopted the cause to deflect bad publicity growing out of the government's Operation Safe Road investigation. Ryan declined to seek a second term as the scandal grew and his standing in the polls fell.
Ryan becomes the 66th person charged in the investigation and the fourth former Illinois governor to be indicted by a federal grand jury in as many decades.
Before his election as governor, Ryan spent eight years as Illinois secretary of state, an office rich in political patronage jobs and lucrative state contracts.
As early as 1991, according to the indictment, Ryan friend and co-defendant Larry Warner made a deal with another lobbyist and prominent Republican political strategist, Donald Udstuen.
They would get payments in return for contracts and leases in the secretary of state's office and launder the money through an Udstuen friend, Alan Drazek, the indictment says.
It says Warner promised to funnel a third of the money to Udstuen and "take care" of Ryan out of the remaining portion. Warner was already indicted and has pleaded innocent. Udstuen and Drazek have pleaded guilty and are awaiting their sentences while cooperating with prosecutors.
Prosecutors say Warner got more than $3.1 million in payments from IBM, American Decal Manufacturing and other companies as well as landlords renting space to the secretary of state. Fitzgerald said there is no allegation of wrongdoing by any of the companies.
Ryan and members of his family shared in $167,000 in graft that included payoffs, free vacations and cash siphoned out of his campaign fund and camouflaged as expenses, Fitzgerald said.
The litany of corruption alleged by prosecutors goes beyond the contracts to relations with another lobbyist, Arthur "Ron" Swanson, a former Republican state senator and old Ryan friend, who is identified in the indictment only as "Associate 1."
According to the indictment, Ryan tipped off Swanson that he would be locating a new state prison in the southern Illinois community of Grayville. Swanson then offered his services to Grayville as a lobbyist and collected $50,000 to press for location of the prison there.
Ryan is also charged with lying on his state and federal income-tax returns about money he got for backing Texas Sen. Phil Gramm in his 1996 campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.
Prosecutors said the Gramm campaign did not know the money, intended for campaign use, went to Ryan personally.
Federal agents who interviewed Ryan about the growing evidence of corruption were met with lies on three occasions, according to the indictment.
In one instance, Ryan is accused of lying when he denied that he knew that campaign fund-raising records were seized in a raid on a drivers license testing station in Libertyville.
In fact, his inspector general, Dean Bauer, told him about it, the indictment says. Bauer was later sent to federal prison after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice.
The scandal proved a major problem for Republicans in the 2002 campaigns and contributed to the election of a Democrat as governor for the first time in three decades.
The indictment guarantees that the scandal will remain in the spotlight as Republicans head into an election year hoping to hang onto a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois and deliver the state for President George Bush.
The drivers license investigation was launched in reaction to a fiery November 1994 expressway accident in Wisconsin in which six children in the family of the Rev. Scott Willis were killed.
A truck driver involved was believed to have received his license through bribery at the secretary of state's corruption-plagued McCook license center.
Willis family attorney Joseph Power, who later settled a lawsuit in the case for $100 million, became a persistent Ryan critic and his demands were crucial in launching the investigation.
"I think they just thought they could do whatever they wanted," he said Wednesday. "Despite the fact that they were under a microscope, the corruption continued when he was governor."
While his popularity plummeted in his home state, Ryan was winning widespread praise nationally and internationally as a leading critic of capital punishment.
Ryan declared a moratorium on capital punishment in Illinois after it was discovered that 13 wrongfully convicted men had been sent to death row.
Some of the neighbors in Ryan's hometown defended him in the face of the charges Wednesday, while others there and around the state sounded resigned to the idea of yet another Illinois politician charged with corruption.
"It doesn't surprise me if any of them go to jail. It's no secret that all of them are crooks, I think," said Valerie Huttermann of Peoria Heights.
Fitzgerald declined to give the range of a potential prison sentence if Ryan is convicted, noting it would be up to the judge to determine based on federal guidelines. Racketeering is punishable by up to 20 years in prison; mail fraud and making false statements to authorities are punishable by up to five years in prison; tax fraud and filing a false tax return are punishable by up to three years in prison.
But prosecutors say the 22-count indictment Wednesday that could send Ryan to prison for years is anything but the final chapter in the 5 1/2-year investigation of Illinois corruption.
"This investigation will continue aggressively, passionately and fairly, and we will take this evidence wherever it leads," lead prosecutor Patrick M. Collins said.
Prosecutors already say they are preparing a fresh indictment focusing on corruption at Chicago's Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority -- known as McPier -- when it was headed by Ryan's former chief of staff and campaign manager, Scott Fawell, who is now serving a 6 1/2-year prison sentence on related corruption charges.
Another team of prosecutors is looking into allegations that legislative staff members did campaign work on state time when Rep. Lee Daniels, R-Elmhurst, was Republican leader.
And prosecutors say there's no telling where the leads may take them eventually.
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The 91-page indictment charges that for more than a decade, as secretary of state and then governor, he took payoffs, gifts and vacations in return for letting associates profit off state contracts and leases. One lobbyist friend allegedly collected $3.1 million.
"What we're alleging in the indictment is basically that the state of Illinois was for sale," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said.
Ryan did not return a telephone call for comment and no one answered the door Wednesday evening at his home in Kankakee, where lights from Christmas decorations and television news cameras lit up the yard.
Chief defense counsel Dan K. Webb issued a statement saying he was confident Ryan "will be exonerated and a jury will find him not guilty of all charges."
Ryan, 69, a hearty-voiced onetime Kankakee drug store owner, carved out an international reputation in the governor's office as a leading critic of the death penalty.
"He has achieved worldwide renown as the only governor in the history of our nation to have the courage to reform a state's broken-down death penalty system that was putting innocent people on death row," Webb said.
Detractors said Ryan adopted the cause to deflect bad publicity growing out of the government's Operation Safe Road investigation. Ryan declined to seek a second term as the scandal grew and his standing in the polls fell.
Ryan becomes the 66th person charged in the investigation and the fourth former Illinois governor to be indicted by a federal grand jury in as many decades.
Before his election as governor, Ryan spent eight years as Illinois secretary of state, an office rich in political patronage jobs and lucrative state contracts.
As early as 1991, according to the indictment, Ryan friend and co-defendant Larry Warner made a deal with another lobbyist and prominent Republican political strategist, Donald Udstuen.
They would get payments in return for contracts and leases in the secretary of state's office and launder the money through an Udstuen friend, Alan Drazek, the indictment says.
It says Warner promised to funnel a third of the money to Udstuen and "take care" of Ryan out of the remaining portion. Warner was already indicted and has pleaded innocent. Udstuen and Drazek have pleaded guilty and are awaiting their sentences while cooperating with prosecutors.
Prosecutors say Warner got more than $3.1 million in payments from IBM, American Decal Manufacturing and other companies as well as landlords renting space to the secretary of state. Fitzgerald said there is no allegation of wrongdoing by any of the companies.
Ryan and members of his family shared in $167,000 in graft that included payoffs, free vacations and cash siphoned out of his campaign fund and camouflaged as expenses, Fitzgerald said.
The litany of corruption alleged by prosecutors goes beyond the contracts to relations with another lobbyist, Arthur "Ron" Swanson, a former Republican state senator and old Ryan friend, who is identified in the indictment only as "Associate 1."
According to the indictment, Ryan tipped off Swanson that he would be locating a new state prison in the southern Illinois community of Grayville. Swanson then offered his services to Grayville as a lobbyist and collected $50,000 to press for location of the prison there.
Ryan is also charged with lying on his state and federal income-tax returns about money he got for backing Texas Sen. Phil Gramm in his 1996 campaign for the GOP presidential nomination.
Prosecutors said the Gramm campaign did not know the money, intended for campaign use, went to Ryan personally.
Federal agents who interviewed Ryan about the growing evidence of corruption were met with lies on three occasions, according to the indictment.
In one instance, Ryan is accused of lying when he denied that he knew that campaign fund-raising records were seized in a raid on a drivers license testing station in Libertyville.
In fact, his inspector general, Dean Bauer, told him about it, the indictment says. Bauer was later sent to federal prison after pleading guilty to obstruction of justice.
The scandal proved a major problem for Republicans in the 2002 campaigns and contributed to the election of a Democrat as governor for the first time in three decades.
The indictment guarantees that the scandal will remain in the spotlight as Republicans head into an election year hoping to hang onto a U.S. Senate seat in Illinois and deliver the state for President George Bush.
The drivers license investigation was launched in reaction to a fiery November 1994 expressway accident in Wisconsin in which six children in the family of the Rev. Scott Willis were killed.
A truck driver involved was believed to have received his license through bribery at the secretary of state's corruption-plagued McCook license center.
Willis family attorney Joseph Power, who later settled a lawsuit in the case for $100 million, became a persistent Ryan critic and his demands were crucial in launching the investigation.
"I think they just thought they could do whatever they wanted," he said Wednesday. "Despite the fact that they were under a microscope, the corruption continued when he was governor."
While his popularity plummeted in his home state, Ryan was winning widespread praise nationally and internationally as a leading critic of capital punishment.
Ryan declared a moratorium on capital punishment in Illinois after it was discovered that 13 wrongfully convicted men had been sent to death row.
Some of the neighbors in Ryan's hometown defended him in the face of the charges Wednesday, while others there and around the state sounded resigned to the idea of yet another Illinois politician charged with corruption.
"It doesn't surprise me if any of them go to jail. It's no secret that all of them are crooks, I think," said Valerie Huttermann of Peoria Heights.
Fitzgerald declined to give the range of a potential prison sentence if Ryan is convicted, noting it would be up to the judge to determine based on federal guidelines. Racketeering is punishable by up to 20 years in prison; mail fraud and making false statements to authorities are punishable by up to five years in prison; tax fraud and filing a false tax return are punishable by up to three years in prison.
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