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News :: Crime & Police |
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Ex-Gov Ryan's Chief Of Staff: Guilty On All Counts |
Current rating: 2 |
by AP via gehrig
(No verified email address) |
19 Mar 2003
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Ryan's chief of staff in the Secretary of State's office found guilty of shakedowns. "Besides racketeering, Fawell was charged with mail fraud, stealing state property, conspiracy to obstruct justice and perjury before a grand jury investigating the Ryan scandal." |
Aide to Ex - Ill. Governor Found Guilty
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:28 p.m. ET
CHICAGO (AP) -- A top aide to former Gov. George Ryan was found guilty on all counts Wednesday by a federal court jury hearing corruption charges stemming from the eight-year period when Ryan was Illinois secretary of state.
Scott Fawell, 45, is the top official charged thus far in the five-year federal probe of alleged corruption that took place while Ryan was secretary of state, before his election as governor in 1998.
Fawell was chief of staff to Ryan in the secretary of state's office and his 1998 campaign manager.
The jury also found Ryan's campaign committee guilty on all counts. The former governor, who decided not to run for a second term and left office in January, was not charged in the case.
The jury deliberated for six days and part of a seventh before reaching its verdicts.
The eight-week trial threw into sharp focus the underside of Illinois politics, creating a fresh chapter in the state's long history of patronage, payoffs and corruption in government.
Fawell did not testify at the trial, but his lawyers said anything he may have done was just business as usual in Illinois politics. If a few overzealous campaign workers went too far and violated the law, there is no way Fawell could have known, they argued.
During his closing argument, defense attorney Edward Genson said Fawell was a fall guy who became the target of ``a lot of scared people who were willing to do anything'' to keep from being charged with crimes themselves.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Joel Levin said Fawell was a key man in a money-hungry political machine.
``He might as well have hung a for-sale sign on the glass doors'' of Ryan's office, Levin said. ``That was the message. We serve for money.''
Fawell and the Citizens for Ryan campaign committee were charged in a nine-count indictment with a racketeering conspiracy that included using state employees working on state time to run Ryan campaigns for almost a decade.
Besides racketeering, Fawell was charged with mail fraud, stealing state property, conspiracy to obstruct justice and perjury before a grand jury investigating the Ryan scandal.
So far, 59 former state employees and others have been charged and 53 convicted in a scandal that dogged Ryan when he was governor -- even as he became nationally known as a foe of the death penalty. The investigation began as a probe into the trading of driver's licenses for bribes.
Fawell, who occasionally smiled while speaking with attorneys after the verdicts were announced, could face up to eight years in federal prison.
Genson said Fawell ``understood that it was an uphill fight, and he is not displeased that he went through the fight. ... Hopefully there will be an appeal and we'll get some redress.''
U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer has frozen $1 million belonging to Citizens for Ryan to be used for a forfeiture as part of the penalty in a conviction. The government also has a lien on Fawell's suburban home.
Wednesday after the verdicts, the judge ordered Citizens for Ryan to forfeit $750,000, but did not order Fawell to forfeit any funds. |
