Former Illinois Governor Convicted of Corruption

After nearly six months of testimony and five weeks of jury deliberations, former Illinois Gov. George H. Ryan was convicted on all counts Monday in a sweeping federal corruption case.

The jury found Ryan, 72, guilty of accepting tens of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts for himself and his family in exchange for doling out millions of dollars’ worth of state business and lucrative contracts to friends and associates. The crimes occurred from 1991 to early 2003, when Ryan was Illinois’ secretary of state and governor.

Ryan, who sat stoically as the verdict was read, could receive a maximum penalty of 95 years in prison and $4.5 million in fines when he is sentenced in August.

“The decision today is not in accordance with the kind of public service I’ve given to the people of Illinois for over 40 years,” said Ryan, who plans to appeal.

The case has marred the legacy of a man once nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Before he left office, Ryan shook up the national debate over capital punishment by placing a moratorium on executions in Illinois because some inmates had been wrongly convicted.

But in a city with more FBI corruption investigation units than any other -- and in a state where racketeering cases long have been part of the political landscape -- Ryan’s conviction marked the latest success by U.S. Atty. Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

“Until this city, this county, this state understands there are victims of corruption, until voters understand this ... the system will not change,” Patrick Collins, assistant U.S. attorney and lead prosecutor in the Ryan case, said at a news conference Monday. “There’s plenty for us to do. When people lie to us, when they shred documents, it only makes us work harder.”

The Ryan case served as a reminder of past political shenanigans in the state capital of Springfield, where facing federal charges has at times seemed an occupational hazard.

Five of Illinois’ last nine governors have been convicted of, tried for or stained by charges of criminal activity. The late former Gov. Otto Kerner Jr. was convicted of conspiracy and tax evasion after, among other things, giving the owner of a horse racetrack special treatment in exchange for profiting from buying and selling the track’s stock.

And after former Illinois Secretary of State Paul Powell died in 1970, investigators found nearly half a million dollars in cash and checks -- from unsuspecting drivers paying for their license plates -- crammed into shoe boxes inside his hotel room.

Tales of busted politicians have become such a part of the cultural landscape that a tourist guide published in the 1990s said “visitors are almost guaranteed one or two criminal indictments of public officials during even a short stay.”

“The picture is pretty grim,” said Michael Lawrence, director of the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. “Other states have problems with dirty politics, but the extent of influence-peddling -- especially in what was shown in the Ryan trial -- has been extreme.”

The case against Ryan, which initially examined allegations of bribes paid for driver’s licenses, was sparked after an unqualified trucker was involved in an accident that killed six children. Dubbed Operation Safe Road, the investigation has led to 79 indictments and 75 convictions so far.

On Monday, Fitzgerald said that although he was pleased with the verdict, he considered Ryan’s willingness to ignore the public safety threat caused by the bribes to be a “low-water mark for public service.”

During the trial, defense lawyer Dan K. Webb portrayed Ryan as a good man who had misplaced his trust in his political aides.

But jurors -- two of whom were replaced midway through deliberations after the Chicago Tribune reported that they hadn’t disclosed their arrest records -- said Monday that the portrait the government painted of widespread corruption was enough to convince them to convict.

Even though no one had testified to seeing the former governor taking a bribe, juror Kevin Rein said he left the courtroom with a sense that “things were not on the up and up.”

Among other things, the jury agreed with prosecutors’ assertions that Ryan had lounged in Jamaica and Cancun at someone else’s expense, encouraged state workers to aid his and other political campaigns while on the state payroll, and enjoyed complimentary trips to Las Vegas casinos with co-defendant Lawrence E. Warner.

Warner, 67, a businessman and longtime Ryan family friend, also was found guilty on all charges. Together, Ryan and Warner were convicted of 22 counts, including racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud, filing false tax returns and lying to investigators.

The verdict comes at a key time in Illinois politics. The state Republican Party is busy trying to shed its connections to the Ryan scandal before the fall elections.

At the same time, federal prosecutors are investigating the state’s Democratic powerhouses: Gov. Rod Blagojevich and the administration of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Last week, federal prosecutors outlined in a court filing their belief that Daley’s aides had erased computer files and shredded documents to hide that City Hall jobs and promotions had been given to applicants with union or political ties -- regardless of whether they were qualified. The case against the aides is to go to trial next month.

“The machine that runs this city may not be as blatant as it was in the past,” said James W. Wagner, president of the Chicago Crime Commission. “But like organized crime, it’s very much alive.”