Ryan fends off questions about corruption investigation

CHICAGO -- Gov. George Ryan fended off questions about whether he is the target of a federal corruption investigation Thursday, a day after prosecutors alleged he was present at the scene of a cover-up aimed at thwarting federal investigators.

Returning to the Capitol in Springfield after giving a speech about the death penalty at the University of Illinois at which he announced three pardons, Ryan refused to comment on whether federal prosecutors have informed him he is now a target of their nearly five-year investigation.

"All I have to say is in that letter right there," Ryan said brusquely, handing out a copy of a statement his office had released Wednesday night. "I have nothing else to say, so don't ask," he said as he walked into the statehouse.

Ryan has been charged with no criminal wrongdoing to date. But the fresh batch of court papers seemed to tangle him more deeply than ever in what prosecutors describe as a web of corruption going back a decade.

Northwestern University law professor Ronald Allen said the 76-page document filed by federal prosecutors Wednesday was very significant but should not be taken as a guarantee that the governor would be indicted.

"This is the first time anyone investigating these affairs has a public document explicitly tying then-Secretary of State Ryan to the illegality -- which usually indicates that there is more to come," Allen said.

The court papers were filed in advance of a scheduled Jan. 8 trial of Ryan's campaign committee and former top aide, Scott Fawell.

Fawell and the committee are both charged in a 10-count racketeering indictment with using state money and employees to perform campaign work.

Ryan, then secretary of state and running for governor, was present in September 1998 when Fawell told aide William Mack to gather campaign documents such as press releases and volunteer lists in the secretary of state's Chicago office and destroy them, according to the latest court filing.

Prosecutors said Fawell feared a federal raid might be imminent and believed agents might confiscate campaign literature as evidence of political work done on state time.

The documents were shredded and Mack informed Ryan a few days later that they had been disposed of, the court papers said.

Allen called that account "a striking revelation."

While the document destruction may have been the most dramatic disclosure, the court papers tied Ryan to other possible wrongdoing uncovered in the four-year federal investigation as well.

The Operation Safe Road investigation surfaced in September 1998 as a probe of bribes paid in return for drivers licenses at secretary of states licensing centers in the Chicago area.

While some of the 50 people convicted thus far have said they used bribe money to meet heavy demands for contributions to Ryan's campaign fund, the governor has said consistently he had no knowledge of that.

In the early part of the investigation, he insisted that while he realized the secretary of state's office had a "culture of corruption," he would not have tolerated any wrongdoing.

"I didn't have anything to do with it," he said in March 2000 about the sale of driver's licenses. "I wouldn't have put up with it for one minute if I had known what was going on."

The latest disclosures, however, tie him to one of the most dramatic incidents involving corruption at a drivers licensing station.

In 1994, the manager of the licensing station in suburban Naperville came under investigation by the secretary of state's investigators in a $2,600 theft from the station. He had fallen behind in his contributions to the Citizens for Ryan campaign fund and investigators believed that he may have taken the money to make up for the shortfall.

Prosecutors said previously that the investigation was quietly dropped after the manager called the political "sponsor" who got him his job under the state's traditional political patronage system -- Illinois Senate President James "Pate" Phillip, R-Wood Dale.

The fresh court papers say Ryan himself demanded and received a briefing from the chief investigator on the progress of the case, including results of a polygraph test. The investigation was dropped a few days after the briefing, according to the court papers.

Federal prosecutors made no pretense that the contents of their latest filing gives a full picture of what they know about the governor.

Sources close to the case have been saying for a year that agents have been asking questions about Ryan and his sources of income.

The court papers say Ryan was treated to vacations at the luxurious estate in Jamaica of landlord Harry Klein, who leased property to the secretary of state's office under Ryan. They say Ryan seemed to have paid for the vacations while secretly being reimbursed by Klein.

Prosecutors have also made a point of noting that Ryan family members got money paid as consulting fees by Texas Sen. Phil Gramm's 1996 campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.

And prosecutors have yet to surface the identity of "Public Official A," who received payoff money from lobbyist and Ryan friend Larry Warner in connection with contracts and leases in the secretary of state's office. Ryan has said he doesn't believe he is Public Official A.

In his prepared statement Wednesday, Ryan said "there are two sides to every story." But he declined Thursday to tell his side.

Ryan met with reporters in Champaign after his law school speech only on the condition that he not be asked about the corruption investigation. When reporters asked about the investigation, he ended the questioning.

"The government doesn't make any comment. And I'm not going to make any comment," he said. "I'm going to comment on all of this stuff when the trials are over."