Ex-GOP worker pleads guilty to license extortion charges

CHICAGO -- A former state employee pleaded guilty Thursday to taking payoffs for issuing bogus drivers licenses to drunken drivers and real licenses to illegal aliens who lacked the required identification.

John Spahn, 54, a former Republican precinct committeeman in Kane County, said a co-worker in the secretary of state's office never told him that the applicants he was bringing in to get licenses under phony names had lost their licenses due to drunken-driving convictions.

Spahn, who worked at the secretary of state's Elgin licensing center, said the applicants who had lost their licenses due to alcohol paid $600 to $1,500 to secretary of state's official Larry Hall to get the bogus versions. He said that Hall split the money with him.

Spahn said there were six such drivers. He acknowledged that he issued seven licenses to undocumented aliens who paid $800 to $1,000 to a person identified in his plea agreement with federal prosecutors only as "Individual G." But prosecutors say there were more than seven such licenses and that bribe money from them topped $40,000.

Spahn, of Hampshire, figures to be sentenced to 10 months in federal prison under his plea agreement with prosecutors. U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo set Feb. 6 for sentencing.

The case has political overtones besides Spahn's former post in the Kane County Republican organization. Hall is a longtime friend of Ryan's 1998 campaign manager, Scott Fawell. Fawell has not been accused of any wrongdoing.