Payoffs cited as former governor indicted

CHICAGO -- Former Gov. George Ryan, who gained a worldwide reputation as a critic of the death penalty, was indicted Wednesday on charges of taking payoffs in a corruption scandal that shadowed his entire four years in office and cut short his political career.

Prosecutors said the 69-year-old Republican and his family took cash, gifts, vacations and other favors to steer state business to friends and associates while he was governor and, before that, Illinois secretary of state.

"Basically the state of Illinois was for sale," U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said.

Ryan did not immediately return a call for comment and no one answered the door at his home in Kankakee. His attorney, 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, who served as secretary of state from 1991 to 1999 and governor from 1999 to last January, has said he knew there was a culture of corruption in the secretary of state's office but was unaware of the specifics.

He becomes the third Illinois governor indicted in the past 40 years.

Outside Illinois, Ryan is best known as an ardent critic of the way capital punishment is carried out. He declared a moratorium on executions in Illinois after it was discovered that 13 wrongfully convicted men had been sent to death row.

Last January, just before leaving office, he cleared out Illinois' death row, pardoning four condemned prisoners and commuting the death sentences of 167 others to life in prison.

The scandal was a factor in his 2001 decision not to seek a second term, and his unpopularity was considered a major reason GOP candidates were routed statewide in 2002, including the election of a Democratic governor for the first time since 1972.

Now the indictment resurrects the issue heading into an important election year for Republicans. GOP candidates for the U.S. Senate and Illinois Legislature face the task of appealing to voters seeing headline after headline about corruption in a Republican administration.

"Hopefully, this indictment will close a sordid chapter in our politics and open the possibility for a fresh start and new opportunities," GOP Senate candidate Andy McKenna said.

The five-year federal investigation initially focused on the selling of driver's licenses for bribes at the secretary of state's office, which oversees the motor vehicle agency. But the investigation was soon expanded to a range of corruption under Ryan, a glad-handing, baby-kissing politician from the old school.

The investigation seemed to draw inexorably closer to Ryan as prosecutors landed dozens of convictions. Ryan became the 66th person charged; 59 people and his campaign committee have been convicted.

Among those convicted were Ryan's top aides, including his chief of staff and the inspector general who was supposed to ferret out misconduct in the secretary of state's office but covered up the scandals instead.

Prosecutors say Ryan helped his friends reap millions of dollars in profits from state government. Ryan and members of his family allegedly shared $167,000 in graft that included payoffs, free vacations and cash siphoned out of his campaign fund.

Fitzgerald also said a lobbyist friend, Larry Warner, had a "free rein" over the secretary of state's office while Ryan steered contracts to his clients.

Ryan was charged with racketeering conspiracy, mail fraud, making false statements to investigators, tax fraud and filing false tax returns. Racketeering is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, while mail fraud and making false statements carry up to five years. The tax charges carry three years.

Fitzgerald declined to give the range of a potential prison sentence if Ryan is convicted.

Ryan, a snowy-haired, deep-voiced former drug store owner, had served as a state representative and lieutenant governor. His selling point with voters was that he was good at making deals, and thus capable of getting results.

The federal investigation was launched after six children in one family died in a fiery accident on a Wisconsin expressway involving a trucker who may have bought his driver's license.

Prosecutors soon traced $170,000 in payoff money to the Citizens for Ryan campaign fund.

While Ryan's popularity plummeted in his home state, he was winning widespread praise nationally and internationally as a leading critic of capital punishment.

"I finally decided that if I was out of office for six months or a year and learned that an innocent man was executed and I didn't do anything about it, that would have been something that would have haunted me for the rest of my life," he said in an Associated Press interview.

Supporters nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. Critics accused him of using the death penalty issue to deflect attention from the scandal.

Otto Kerner, governor of Illinois from 1961 to 1968, was later convicted of bribery. Dan Walker, who served from 1973 to 1977, was convicted on charges related to financial dealings after he left office. William Stratton, governor from 1953-1961, was later indicted and acquitted on charges of income tax evasion.