Whistle-blowers feel vindicated - The State Journal

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1
6 /2 years in prison
Where will
he spend
them?
Lower end
of sentencing
guidelines
BY MIKE RAMSEY
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE
CHICAGO — A federal judge expressed regret Wednesday as she
sentenced former Gov. George Ryan
to 61/2 years in prison, but said his
crimes had undermined confidence
in government.
U.S. Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer did
not diverge from federal guidelines
that recommended a sentence of 78
months to 97 months, but she did
adopt the lower end of the sentencing scale for the central racketeering
charge on which Ryan was convicted
in April.
The 72-year-old Ryan pleaded for
leniency, saying a long incarceration
period at this stage in his life is “tantamount to a death sentence.”
“Sentencing gives me no pleasure,
and this gives me the least pleasure
I’ve ever experienced,” Pallmeyer,
addressing Ryan and his family, said
from the bench during a nearly fourhour hearing. Pallmeyer sentenced
the former governor’s co-defendant,
Chicago businessman Larry Warner,
to 31/2 years in prison.
A jury convicted Ryan, who was
governor from 1999 to 2003, of 18
criminal counts following a sevenmonth trial at Chicago’s federal
courthouse. The Kankakee Republican was accused of steering state
contracts and leases to insider
friends, including Warner, who gave
Ryan and his family cash, gifts and
other benefits. Many of the deals that
enriched Ryan’s cronies occurred
during his 1991-99 tenure as secretary of state.
Pallmeyer called Ryan a “complicated” person but said he did not
measure up to the high standards of
public service nor has he conceded
the seriousness of his crimes — offenses that made people cynical
about government.
“Cynicism is inconsistent with patriotism,” Pallmeyer said.
The stoic, white-haired Ryan addressed the judge in an eight-minute
statement in which he characterized
his sentencing as “the saddest day of
my life.” He said he had let down Illinoisans who put him in office and
cited “failures that I’m very ashamed
of.”
“I ask that you temper your judgment in light of the good that I’ve
tried to do in my public life,” Ryan
told Pallmeyer.
Lead prosecutor Patrick Collins
later bristled at Ryan’s comments to
the court, saying the ex-governor
sidestepped direct responsibility for
his actions.
“I think Governor Ryan unfortunately remains defiant today,”
Collins said at a news conference in
the lobby of the Dirksen Federal
Building. “I didn’t hear (contrition). I
was very much hoping for it as a person.”
By DOUG FINKE
STATE CAPITOL BUREAU
File/The Associated Press
George Ryan (shown at Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s inauguration in January 2003) will not have
to report to prison until Jan. 4, if then.
Ryan’s defense attorney, Dan
Webb, tried to persuade Pallmeyer to
sentence Ryan to less than 30
months in prison. Webb detailed
Ryan’s public career, including his
controversial 2003 decision to empty
Illinois’ death row. He also noted
Ryan’s health problems — including
diabetes and Crohn’s disease — and
said Ryan’s wife of more than 50
years, Lura Lynn, faces grim financial prospects if her husband’s state
pension is revoked. That issue is
pending, he said.
Webb later told reporters that his
law firm, Winston & Strawn, plans to
pursue an appeal, based on disruptions and late juror replacements
that occurred during deliberations in
the Ryan trial.
“Based on the jury deliberations,
See SENTENCING on page 8
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© 2006, The State
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When former Gov. George Ryan
was sentenced to prison Wednesday, questions to: Where? How
soon? And will it be Club Fed?
U.S. District Judge Rebecca
Pallmeyer ordered Ryan to report
to federal prison Jan. 4. That is an
unusually long delay for someone
convicted in federal court, said Jon
Gray Noll, a Springfield lawyer
with extensive experience representing defendants in federal criminal cases. Normally, defendants
are ordered to report within 30
days, he said.
In the meantime, Ryan’s lead attorney, Dan Webb, is trying to keep
Ryan from having to report even
on Jan. 4. He is asking Pallmeyer to
allow Ryan to remain free on bond
while the conviction is appealed.
Noll and former U.S. attorney
Bill Roberts said that is unlikely.
Noll said Webb will have to show
that an appeal has a “substantial
likelihood of success” for Ryan to
remain out of prison.
“If I was in Las Vegas, I would
bet against it,” Noll said.
“The odds are that will not
occur,” Roberts agreed.
Where Ryan will serve his sentence will be determined in the
next few days. Webb asked that
Ryan be sent to a facility in Oxford,
Wis., roughly 60 miles north of
Madison. Pallmeyer said she will
consider that request.
Webb’s recommendation surprised Noll.
“Webb’s recommendation is a
poor one, in my opinion,” Noll said.
“If Governor Ryan is in the physical
condition that Mr. Webb says he is,
I think the bureau (Federal Bureau
of Prisons) would probably send
him to Rochester, Minnesota,
where there is a federal facility that
works closely with the Mayo Clinic.”
Defense lawyers argued that
Ryan, 72, should be given a light
sentence because he suffers from
Crohn’s disease, diabetes and
See WHERE? on page 3
File/The Associated Press
Nov. 16, 1994: The Rev. Duane Scott Willis talks about the
accident that killed six of his children. The accident led to
the investigation that eventually brought down George Ryan.
Clearing
of death row
colors many
reactions
By ADRIANA COLINDRES
STATE CAPITOL BUREAU
Whistle-blowers feel vindicated
But they’ve
paid a price
“ABSOLUTELY, it was worth it. ... I
have no regrets about it, although it
did take a huge toll on me.”
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FOR THE RECORD
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SEPTEMBER 7, 2006
— TAMMY RAYNOR,
WHO REPORTED LICENSES WERE BEING SOLD FOR BRIBES
By ADRIANA COLINDRES
STATE CAPITOL BUREAU
Mark Lipe, who helped expose
corruption in George Ryan’s administration of the Illinois secretary of
state’s office, wants to launch a campaign to erase Ryan’s name from the
cornerstone of the Abraham Lincoln
Presidential Library.
“I’m very serious, oh, absolutely,”
Lipe said Wednesday, after Ryan was
sentenced to 61/2 years in prison for
corruption. “His name shouldn’t be
on a building that honors such a
president.”
Lipe worked in the inspector general’s office of the secretary of state
when Ryan held that elective position.
Lipe, formerly of Springfield, now
lives in Morton.
He has said he found a briefcase
full of money and receipts for contributions to Ryan’s campaign fund
during a raid on a Libertyville driver’s license facility in 1993. He said
he never saw the briefcase again
after turning it over to his boss, in-
spector general Dean Bauer, a friend
of Ryan later sent to prison as part of
the licenses-for-bribes scandal.
Lipe eventually resigned from his
job, told his story to a federal grand
jury and testified at Ryan’s trial.
Blowing the whistle meant that
Lipe “had to leave a profession that I
absolutely loved and a career that I
had pursued ever since I was a small
child,” he said.
“I would be retired now and, you
know, my life would probably be a
lot different,” he added. “But by the
same token, I don’t know that I could
wake every morning and look myself
in the mirror and know that I could
have done something to stop the incorrigible corruption that that administration levied, for the sake of
saving my job.”
Another whistle-blower, Tammy
Raynor, alerted attorney Joseph
Power in 1997 that she had seen unqualified truckers getting licenses in
exchange for bribes.
Raynor was a license examiner in
the secretary of state’s office. Power
was the lawyer for the Rev. Duane
Scott Willis and his wife, Janet, who
lost six children in a fiery 1994 crash
involving a truck driver who had
used bribery to get his license.
Raynor said she experienced per-
See VINDICATED on page 3
Bridget Drobney’s parents still
feel the pain of losing their 16-yearold daughter, who was stabbed to
death in a Macoupin County cornfield more than 20 years ago.
“Every day. Every single day.
And especially around the holidays
and especially when we have family gatherings over here,” George
Drobney said Wednesday as he
and his wife, Cathy, prepared to
host a birthday party for their
granddaughter.
“There’s always that one empty
chair,” he said. “It’s never over.”
Robert Turner of Wilsonville was
convicted of murdering Bridget in
1985 and sentenced to die. He had
used a flashing red light, similar to
what police cars have, to pull over
the teen’s vehicle.
But Turner’s death sentence was
thrown out, along with more than
100 others, when George Ryan —
in one of his last acts as governor
See DEATH ROW on page 3
OP-ED / page 7
YOUR OPINION
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■ A LAWYER’S VIEWPOINT;
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PAT QUINN’S EARLY WARNING
SENTIMENT ON THE SENTENCE
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Ryan checks in
Former governor begins prison sentence
By ROBERT IMRIE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
OXFORD, Wis. — Former Illinois Gov.
George Ryan avoided the media but not the
inevitable Wednesday as he entered a federal prison to begin serving a 6 1/2-year corruption sentence.
Life will be far different for the pharmacist-turned-politician as he trades in his
civilian attire for the Wisconsin prison’s
standard issue clothing — a tan shirt and
pants, white socks and steel-toed shoes.
“The hardest adjustment for anybody,
not just a 73-year-old, is the separation of
the family. That is the toughest. You are basically told when to eat, when the lights go
out,” said Mike Truman, a spokesman for
the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington. “You are told what to do. Your life is
structured.”
The Republican entered the federal correctional center about noon, Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Felicia Ponce said. He
had left his home in Kankakee early in the
morning, making one coffee stop in Chica-
go to pick up his lawyer and longtime
friend, former Gov. James Thompson.
Ryan managed to avoid a throng of
media awaiting his arrival at the prison’s
main entrance as he joined more than 200
other inmates at the minimum-security
camp in central Wisconsin.
Oxford prison spokeswoman Christine
Montonna said Ryan is “a high-profile inmate” and that prison officials brought him
in a back way to protect him and maintain
order at the prison.
“We felt it was a security step that we had
Purchase this photo at www.sj-r.com/reprints
M. Spencer Green/AP
George Ryan waves as he leaves
his home in Kankakee for prison.
to take,” Montonna said when asked
whether Ryan had received special treatment. She did not specify what, if any, danger Ryan might have faced.
Ryan, who gained international acclaim
See RYAN on page 2
chance of above-average, average and below-average precipitation for central Illinois in March,
April and May of next year.
In September, when the lake
level was about a foot below nor-
See LAKE on page 8
See VETERANS on page 8
Lake Springfield’s level 2.3 feet low
STAFF WRITERS
Lake Springfield’s water level
has dropped to about 2.3 feet
below average for this time of
year, but the official in charge of
water for City Water, Light and
Power says there’s no cause for
concern unless the dry conditions continue into the spring.
The lake Wednesday was at
555.7 feet above sea level and 4.3
feet below full pool, according to
CWLP water division manager
Tom Skelly.
Skelly said he considers any-
thing below average to be representative of a drought, but CWLP
officials expect above-average
precipitation over the next several months and average precipitation during the spring.
According to the National
Weather Service’s climate prediction center, there is an equal
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — Veterans
make up one in four homeless people in the United States, though
they are only 11 percent of the general adult population, according to
a report to be released today.
And homelessness is not just a
problem among middle-age and
elderly veterans. Younger veterans
from Iraq and Afghanistan are
trickling into shelters and soup
kitchens seeking services, treatment or help with finding a job.
The Veterans Affairs Department
has identified 1,500 homeless veterans from the current wars and says
400 of them have participated in its
programs specifically targeting
homelessness.
The National Alliance to End
Homelessness, a public education
nonprofit, based the findings of its
report on numbers from Veterans
Affairs and the Census Bureau.
Data from 2005 estimated that
194,254 homeless people out of
744,313 on any given night were
veterans.
In comparison, the VA says that
20 years ago, the estimated number
of veterans who were homeless on
any given night was 250,000.
In 2006, the alliance estimates,
495,400 veterans were homeless at
some point during the year.
Some advocates for veterans say
an early presence of veterans from
Iraq and Afghanistan at shelters
does not bode well for the future. It
took roughly a decade for the lives
of troubled Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started
showing up among the homeless.
Advocates worry that intense and
repeated deployments leave newer
veterans particularly vulnerable.
“We’re going to be having a
tsunami of them eventually because
the mental health toll from this war
is enormous,” said Daniel Tooth, director of veterans affairs for Lancaster County, Pa.
While services to homeless veterans have improved in the past 20
years, advocates say more financial
resources are needed. With the
spotlight on the plight of Iraq veterans, they hope more will be done to
provide affordable housing to the
younger veterans.
“When the Vietnam War ended,
Justin L. Fowler/The State Journal-Register
By CHRIS WETTERICH
and AMANDA REAVY
Study finds current
wars starting to
show up in numbers
By KIMBERLY HEFLING
A fisherman casts off a Lake Springfield dock that no longer floats but rests on rocks.
CWLP officials
say it’s not
a problem yet
Veterans
are one
fourth of
homeless
Miller: Secrecy should concern all
Former reporter
for New York Times
speaks at UIS
By BERNARD SCHOENBURG
POLITICAL WRITER
Judith Miller, a former New York
Times reporter who spent 85 days in
jail in 2005 to protect a confidential
source, said in Springfield Wednesday
night that increasing government secrecy in the post-9/11 world should
worry not only journalists, but all citizens.
That's why she's lobbying for a federal “shield law” she said isn't designed to protect reporters so much as
it is to protect their sources and allow
them to provide the kind of essential
information the government is trying
to block the public from knowing.
It's been a rule of thumb in American government that whistleblowers
INDEX
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BUSINESS
CITY/STATE
CLASSIFIED
COMICS
“turn to the press to get the truth out,”
she said, and they need to know they
won't lose their jobs for revealing
those facts.
But, appearing with a panel of journalists and journalism experts at the
University of Illinois at Springfield as
one of a series of events under the
heading “government accountability
and a free press,” Miller also had to
defend her actions at the Times,
where some have said her reporting
about suspected weapons of mass destruction in Iraq were used by the
WEB SITE
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Bush administration to help justify the
U.S. invasion of that country.
After Miller's speech, Phil Kadner, a
columnist and associate editor at the
Daily Southtown, which serves south
suburban Chicago, congratulated
Miller on her “guts” in going to jail to
protect a source, but he added that he
was “disappointed in her presentation” because she didn't tell more.
“Some believe she was co-opted
Jonathan Kirshner/The State Journal-Register
See MILLER on page 2
WEATHER
Partly cloudy today and
tonight. Winds 6-12 mph
today, 3-6 mph tonight.
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Judith Miller speaks Wednesday night at UIS.
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All rights reserved. Our 176th
year, No. 364
Springfield, Illinois
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
WORLD&NATION
Iran
PEOPLE
Hulk Hogan’s son turns himself in
HULK HOGAN’s son turned him-
■ Leader suggests nuclear milestone attained
BIRJAND, Iran — Iran has reached a milestone in its nuclear program,
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday, suggesting that the
country now has 3,000 uranium-enriching centrifuges fully operating.
“We have now reached 3,000 machines,” Ahmadinejad told thousands
of Iranians gathered in Birjand, in eastern Iran, in a show of defiance of
international demands to halt the program that the U.S. and its allies say
masks the country’s nuclear arms efforts.
Ahmadinejad has in the past claimed that Iran had succeeded in installing the 3,000 centrifuges at its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.
But Wednesday’s claim appeared to go further, with Ahmadinejad’s
words and the tone and setting of his Wednesday speech suggesting he
meant all 3,000 were running.
Iraq
■ Government: 46,000 citizens have returned
BAGHDAD — Declining violence has prompted Iraqi refugees to pack
up and return home, with the government on Wednesday claiming
46,030 people crossed back over the borders in October alone.
Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, the Iraqi spokesman for a U.S.-Iraqi
military push to pacify Baghdad, said border authorities recorded 46,030
people returning to Iraq in October and attributed the large number to
the “improving security situation.”
But the remnants of the brutality that has shaken Iraq keep turning up.
The Iraqi Army said 17 bodies were discovered in an area troops have
only recently been able to enter after driving al-Qaida fighters out of regions north and west of the capital.
Space shuttle
■ Discovery, crew return to Earth
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Discovery and its crew returned to Earth
on Wednesday and concluded a 15-day space station build and repair
mission that was among the most challenging — and heroic — in shuttle
history.
The space shuttle touched down on a crisp and bright fall afternoon
after safely crossing the continent in the first coast-to-coast re-entry
since the Columbia disaster almost five years ago.
The seven shuttle astronauts and three residents of the international
space station teamed up during the docked mission to save a mangled
solar wing. It was one of the most difficult and dangerous repairs attempted in orbit, but the future of the space station was riding on it and
Scott Parazynski pulled it off in a single spacewalk.
Toy recall
■ Items found to contain ‘date rape’ drug
WASHINGTON — Millions of Chinese-made toys for children have
been pulled from shelves in North America and Australia after scientists
found they contain a chemical that converts into a powerful date rape
drug when ingested. Two children in the U.S. and three in Australia were
hospitalized after swallowing the beads.
With only seven weeks until Christmas, the recall is yet another blow to
the toy industry — already bruised by a slew of recalls this past summer.
In the United States, the toy goes by the name Aqua Dots, a highly
popular holiday toy distributed by Toronto-based Spin Master Toys.
They are called Bindeez in Australia, where they were named toy of the
year at an industry function earlier this year.
Rudy Giuliani
■ TV preacher Robertson backs Republican
WASHINGTON — Televangelist Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, endorsed Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani
on Wednesday.
“It is my pleasure to announce my support for America’s mayor, Rudy
Giuliani, a proven leader who is not afraid of what lies ahead and who
will cast a hopeful vision for all Americans,” Robertson said during a
news conference with Giuliani in Washington.
The former New York mayor backs abortion rights and gay rights, positions that put him in conflict with conservative GOP orthodoxy, and
has been trying to persuade evangelical conservatives like Robertson to
overlook their differences on those issues.
The Associated Press
TODAYin history
Today is Thursday, Nov. 8, the
312th day of 2007. There are 53
days left in the year.
■ TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT
On Nov. 8, 1923, Adolf Hitler
launched his first attempt at seizing
power with a failed coup in Munich, Germany, that came to be
known as the “Beer-Hall Putsch.”
■ ON THIS DATE
In 1837, Mount Holyoke Female
Seminary, a college exclusively for
women, opened in South Hadley,
Mass.
In 1889, Montana became the
41st state.
In 1932, New York Gov. Franklin
D. Roosevelt defeated incumbent
Herbert Hoover for the presidency.
In 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Civil Works Administration, designed to create
jobs for more than 4 million unemployed.
In 1942, Operation Torch, resulting in an Allied victory, began during World War II as U.S. and
British forces landed in French
North Africa.
In 1960, Massachusetts Sen.
John F. Kennedy defeated Vice
President Richard M. Nixon for the
presidency.
In 1966, Edward W. Brooke, RMass., became the first black candidate to be elected to the U.S. Senate by popular vote.
In 1987, 11 people were killed
when an Irish Republican Army
bomb exploded as crowds gathered
in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland,
for a ceremony honoring Britain’s
war dead.
■ TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Actress June Havoc is 95. Singer
Patti Page is 80. Singer Bonnie
Raitt is 58. TV personality Mary
Hart is 57. Singer-actor Leif Garrett
is 46. Actress Parker Posey is 39.
Rock musician Jimmy Chaney is
38. Actress Roxana Zal is 38.
Singer Diana King is 37. Actress
Gretchen Mol is 34. Actress Tara
Reid is 32.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
self in Wednesday on charges
stemming from a
street-racing
crash this summer that critically
injured a passenger in his car, police said.
Hogan
NICK BOLLEA,
17, was arrested on charges of
reckless driving involving serious
bodily injury, Clearwater, Fla., police spokeswoman Elizabeth DalyWatts said. He arrived at the Pinellas County Jail handcuffed and accompanied by two police officers,
The Tampa Tribune reported.
“Because Nick is still a juvenile
and has no prior criminal record,
we are disappointed that he is
being charged as an adult offender,” family spokesman Adam Han-
RYAN
■ From page 1
for his opposition to the death
penalty, has said he will continue
fighting to clear his name, even
while sitting in prison.
“Tomorrow I embark on a new
journey in my life,” he said Tuesday night, surrounded by family
and friends at his home. “I do so
with a firm faith in God and the
support and faith of my family.”
Ryan left Kankakee for the 255mile trip to the lockup early
Wednesday. He waved to a horde
of reporters waiting for his departure and glanced at news helicopters overhead as he left but did not
answer questions. He climbed into
the front seat of a van, accompanied by his wife, Lura Lynn, and
other family members.
Ryan was convicted in April
2006 of steering contracts, tax
fraud, misuse of tax dollars and
state workers, and killing a
bribery investigation. Elected governor in 1998, after serving as secretary of state, he was in office
only a few weeks before the federal investigation became public. He
served only one term.
Ryan had hoped to remain free
on bond while he appealed his
convictions to the U.S. Supreme
Court. But the snowy haired,
husky voiced father of six lost his
final bid to delay his prison term
when U.S. Supreme Court Justice
John Paul Stevens turned down
his request to remain free on bail.
The camp is in a rural area
about 60 miles north of Madison.
It has four wings, each with 13
rooms that house four inmates
apiece, much like a military barracks, Truman said.
The former governor was told
to arrive empty-handed.
“He doesn’t need anything,”
Truman said. Ryan was to be fingerprinted, photographed and
eventually given prison garb.
Pamela Kaput, 55, said she
moved 11 years ago to the mobile
home where she lives across the
tree-lined road from the prison,
from Chicago — where she had
voted for Ryan as secretary of
delsman said in a written statement. The statement also sought to
discredit reports Bollea caused the
crash by driving fast, saying preliminary expert reports indicated it
was not a high-speed accident.
Police said Bollea was racing his
father’s 1998 Toyota Supra against
a Dodge Viper driven by a friend
on Aug. 26 when the car Bollea was
driving struck a curb, spun across
two lanes of traffic and slammed
rear-end first into a palm tree. His
passenger, John Graziano, was not
wearing a seat belt and was critically injured. Bollea, who was
wearing a seat belt, was not seriously injured.
Taking the blame
LYNNE SPEARS say she’s responsible for her daughter BRITNEY’s troubles.
“I blame myself,” she told Life &
state. Kaput acknowledged she
felt sorry because he is older man
being separated from his wife.
“But if he did the crime, he
should do the time,” she said. “I
don’t understand how these politicians can do this to the people
who vote for them.”
Ryan’s day will start by 7:30
a.m. and end no later than 11:30
p.m. His chores typically will include mopping floors, cleaning toilets, raking leaves, cutting grass,
painting and shoveling snow, Truman said. He’s likely to begin
working by the end of the week.
Ryan was convicted of steering
big-money state contracts and
leases to co-defendant Larry
Warner and other friends in exchange for items ranging from
trips to Jamaica to a free golf bag.
He also was convicted of tax fraud
and using tax dollars and state
employees to operate his political
campaigns for more than a
decade.
And he was convicted of killing
an investigation of bribes paid in
exchange for driver’s licenses
when he was Illinois secretary of
state. Prosecutors have traced
$170,000 of the bribe money to his
campaign fund.
A fiery 1994 auto wreck in Wisconsin exposed the driver’s license scheme. The evidence suggests an unqualified driver was
behind the wheel of a truck that
lost a tail light and mud flap on a
busy interstate. A van hit the part
and burst into flames. Six children
burned to death.
Ryan dismissed state agents
looking into how the driver got his
license and replaced them with a
family friend who later pleaded
guilty to obstruction of justice and
covering up scandals to spare
Ryan embarrassment.
Ryan on Tuesday thanked supporters and acknowledged the
controversy surrounding his
tenure.
“To the people of Illinois, I’m
not blind to the sentiment that
some hold, but I want you to
know that I did my best,” he said.
CLICK YOUR
PICK
Style Weekly magazine. “What
mother wouldn’t?”
“I wish I’d been there more while
she was touring,” Spears said. “But
I couldn’t be. I had the other kids to
look after.”
Spears, the mother of three children with ex-husband JAMIE
SPEARS, is writing a memoir about
raising her family in the public eye.
“Pop Culture Mom: A Real Story of
Fame and Family in a Tabloid
World” is set for release May 11,
which is Mother’s Day.
“I didn’t raise my children to
have Hollywood careers. This all
just exploded in my face, and big
dreams became big headaches,”
said Spears, who recently reconciled with her 25-year-old pop
singer-daughter after a period of
estrangement.
Has justice been served in
the George Ryan case?
72.4%
Yes
27.6%
No
TOTAL VOTES: 2,123
Results as of
10:45 p.m. Wednesday.
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for today’s poll: Will gasoline hit
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The Associated Press
Priest arrested on charges
of stalking Conan O’Brien
NEW YORK (AP) — A priest
has been arrested on charges of
stalking late-night talk show host
Conan O’Brien by writing him
threatening notes on parish letterhead, contacting his parents and
showing up at his studio, prosecutors said Wednesday.
The Rev. David Ajemian, a
priest in the Archdiocese of
Boston, was arrested last week
while trying to enter a taping session of NBC’s “Late Night with
Conan O’Brien” at New York’s
Rockefeller Plaza, said Barbara
Thompson, a spokeswoman for
the Manhattan prosecutor’s office.
Ajemian called himself “your
priest stalker” in one note and
complained of not being allowed
in to see an earlier taping of the
O’Brien show, court papers say.
MILLER
Robert Novak who “outed” Valerie Plame, she said.
Miller said there is always a balance that must be struck between
civil liberties and national security, but she fears the Bush administration has gone too far in some
cases — including its penchant for
secrecy. She said some people
being stopped at airports as having suspect names turn out to be
“toddlers and disabled Americans
in wheelchairs.”
Charles Lewis, president and
CEO of the Fund for Independence in Journalism, said there
seems to be a “war on journalists” with the cutback in government information being made
available.
And Charlie Wheeler, director
of the Public Affairs Reporting
program at UIS, said he’s seen a
move by government at several
levels seeking more than ever to
“control the message,” with one
way being to avoid questions from
“pesky reporters.”
The administration of Gov. Rod
Blagojevich, he said, is “the most
closed government we’ve ever
had.”
■ From page 1
by sources,” Kadner said.
A question passed on from an
audience member was similar,
wondering if Miller was used to
promote Bush administration
propaganda.
Miller, a 59-year-old Pulitzer
Prize winner who still lives in New
York, defended herself, saying
that while the reality of the lack of
weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq shows it was an “intelligence
fiasco,” her reporting accurately
told the best information that was
also being given to the White
House, and she was checking it as
much as possible.
“Am I not supposed to report
the intelligence that’s being given
to the White House?” she asked.
Miller was released from prison
when she agreed to testify, but
only after her confidential source,
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who had
been chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, concurred. She
noted that she didn’t write stories
at the time about her conversations with Libby in which he discussed the identity of a CIA agent.
It was conservative columnist
Bernard Schoenburg can be
reached at 788-1540 or
[email protected].
Associated Press writer Carla K.
Johnson contributed to this report
from Kankakee.
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November 8, 2007 / Vol. 176, No. 363
Published daily and Sunday by The State
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STATE OF
SHAME
When Gov. Rod Blagojevich was taken from his home in handcuffs Tuesday,
it added a new, sordid chapter to the state’s infamously corrupt political reputation
Chicago-area U.S. attorney Patrick
Fitzgerald had Blagojevich pre-emptively
arrested, he said, because “we were in the
middle of a corruption crime spree, and
we wanted to stop it.”
For one thing, Fitzgerald said, the governor was prepared to “auction off” President-elect Barack Obama’s former seat
in the U.S. Senate to the highest bidder.
A host of political figures immediately
called for Blagojevich to resign.
At least for now, however, Blagojevich
retains the right to appoint Illinois’ next
senator — although leaders of the General Assembly quickly initiated plans to
change state law so the Obama Senate
seat could be filled instead by a special
election.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Michael
Madigan said he would consider the possibility of impeaching the governor.
There was no disguising sentiment
Tuesday in Sangamon County, where
Blagojevich is massively unpopular.
“Merry Christmas Illinois. Bye Bye Rod,”
said a sign posted at Del’s Popcorn shop
in downtown Springfield.
The case against
the governor
Blagojevich knew he was being
investigated, but prosecutors say he
pushed on into corruption.
PAGE 3
At the Capitol
Legislators will convene next week.
PAGE 4
State of shock
Analysis: Even many who had expected
the worst were surprised.
PAGE 5
INDEX
ADVICE
BUSINESS
CITY/STATE
CLASSIFIED
COMICS
ABOVE: U.S. Attorney Patrick
Fitzgerald describes the charges
against Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
TOP: Blagojevich, in the back
seat, is driven away after his court
appearance. Gerald Herbert/AP
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Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John
Harris, are both accused of conspiring to
extort campaign contributions from a
number of people seeking favors from
the governor. And prosecutors said
Blagojevich wanted to get certain Chicago Tribune editors fired by threatening to
deny state help to sell the Tribune-owned
Chicago Cubs.
Prosecutors said eavesdropping devices in Blagojevich’s campaign office
and home captured the governor calling
the Senate seat “a (bleeping) valuable
thing. You just don’t give it away.”
“I want to make money,” he allegedly
said at one point in the recordings.
Robert Grant, FBI special agent in
charge of the Chicago office, said even
the most cynical FBI agents were “disgusted and revolted” by what they heard
on the recordings.
“If it isn’t the most corrupt state in the
United States,” Grant said of Illinois, “it’s
certainly one hell of a competitor.”
Blagojevich, whose 52nd birthday is
today, was released on a recognizance
bond Tuesday afternoon.
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winds 4-8 mph.
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Reaction from
the street
Everyday Springfieldians say they are
generally pleased, if surprised, by the
governor’s arrest.
PAGE 6
Our opinion
Gov. Blagojevich should resign now.
PAGE 8
For more coverage of Tuesday’s events,
including video, visit our Web site.
www.sj-r.com
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© 2008, The State JournalRegister, GateHouse Media, Inc.
All rights reserved. Our 178th
year, No. 31
HE’S
GONE
Unanimous Senate vote a historic first;
Quinn sworn in as Illinois’ new leader
Purchase this photo at www.sj-r.com/reprints
Jason Johnson/The State Journal-Register
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ov. Rod Blagojevich on Thursday became the first governor in the history
of Illinois to be impeached and removed from office. He also is the first
governor in the country to be removed by impeachment in more than two decades.
Minutes after Blagojevich was ousted, Lt.
Gov. Pat Quinn took the oath to become Illinois’ 41st governor.
Quinn was sworn in by Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke on the House floor. Secretary
of State Jesse White, Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, Attorney General Lisa Madigan and a
number of Quinn’s friends and family mem-
G
bers were present, along with several lawmakers, mostly Republican senators.
“The ordeal is over,” Quinn said after being
sworn in.
Among other things, Quinn pledged to live
in the Executive Mansion in Springfield.
Blagojevich had refused to live at the mansion, saying he wanted to raise his children in
a more normal environment in Chicago.
The Illinois Senate voted 59-0 Thursday
afternoon to remove the governor, based on a
litany of complaints ranging from mismanagement of state agencies and defiance of
the General Assembly to allegations of fed-
eral criminal wrongdoing.
Blagojevich refused until the last minute to
participate in the three-day impeachment trial
conducted in the Senate, including offering
any kind of defense against the allegations
laid out against him.
However, Blagojevich was allowed Thursday to make a closing statement to the Senate
in which he delivered an impassioned plea
that he did not deserve to be impeached.
Blagojevich said the criminal allegations
against him are just that, allegations. And he
again complained that the trial rules were
stacked against him, making it impossible for
him to effectively defend himself.
Immediately after he made his speech,
Blagojevich left Springfield, flying back to
his home in Chicago on a state airplane.
Senators were unmoved by the governor’s
statement. More than half of them, Democrats
and Republicans alike, denounced Blagojevich on the Senate floor before voting him out
of office.
The Senate also voted unanimously to prohibit Blagojevich from holding public office
in Illinois ever again. ■ SEE PAGE 7
— Doug Finke / Statehouse Bureau
Quinn steps into new role
Blagojevich’s speech
at impeachment trial
fails to move senators
New governor asks
citizens of Illinois
to say prayer for him
By RYAN KEITH
By ADRIANA COLINDRES
STATE CAPITOL BUREAU
[email protected]
STAFF WRITER
[email protected]
Facing the spotlight in the final hours of his political life, Rod Blagojevich delivered an impassioned plea for mercy Thursday that wowed those
watching and judging him at the Capitol.
It didn’t work.
“His appearance today, to say the least, was too
little, too late,” said Sen. John Sullivan, DRushville.
Blagojevich gave a
roughly 45-minute closing
argument Thursday in his
Senate impeachment trial,
days after vowing not to
Visit our Web site
be part of what he repeatedly called an unfair
for a gallery of phoprocess during a whirltographs and video
wind media trip in New
coverage of
York.
Thursday’s historic
He appealed to senaevents.
tors’ sympathy, urging
them to see what he had
done was not to benefit himself but the state of
Illinois. Blagojevich stressed they shouldn’t take
such a drastic step as removal from office.
“How can you throw a governor out of office for
insufficient and incomplete evidence?” Blagojevich said, repeatedly hitting on that theme. “Since
the articles don’t prove any criminal activity, I
don’t know how you can throw me out of office.”
A few hours later, though, the Senate voted 590 to throw him out of office, making him the only
Illinois governor impeached and removed from
the highest post.
In many ways, the closing argument was a
Declaring that his new administration is “ready
to move forward,” Gov. Pat Quinn Thursday
evening sketched out plans to focus on government reform and state finances, and he asked Illinoisans to pray for him.
“This is probably the
most trying, difficult time
in the history of our
Gov. Pat Quinn
state,” Quinn said, citing
the country’s involvement announced plans to
in two wars and the review major
state’s fiscal troubles.
decisions made by
At a Statehouse news Blagojevich, including
conference, Quinn said he
proposals to move
would ask the legislature
to let him deliver the gov- IDOT’s traffic safety
ernor’s annual budget ad- division from
dress a month later than Springfield to
planned, on March 18.
southern Illinois and
Quinn said he and
to shutter the Pontiac
aides will do “fact finding
on fiscal matters” during Correctional Center.
the next several weeks to
get a handle on the state’s financial picture.
Quinn also announced plans to review major
decisions made by former Gov. Rod Blagojevich,
who was expelled from office Thursday by the Illinois Senate, to decide if they should stand.
Those plans include proposals to move the Illinois Department of Transportation’s traffic safety
division from Springfield to southern Illinois and
to shutter the Pontiac Correctional Center.
Quinn made it clear that multiple changes are
on the horizon for state government.
Changes coming?
Purchase this photo at www.sj-r.com/reprints
David Spencer/The State Journal-Register
Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke swears in Pat Quinn as governor of Illinois on Thursday while
Quinn’s son Patrick holds the Bible.
THE SENATORS’
OWN WORDS
RISE AND FALL OF
ROD BLAGOJEVICH
IMPEACHMENT
REACTIONS
Thirty-seven senators chose
to speak prior to the vote, and
several of them had some
scathing words for the nowformer governor of Illinois.
Rod Blagojevich’s story twists and
turns from a blue-collar upbringing to below-average grades in
law school to a life of public service and, now, to unemployment.
Just about everyone has an
opinion about the removal of Rod
Blagojevich from office, no matter if you’re a high school student
or the leader of the free world.
PAGE 5
PAGE 6
PAGE 19
NEWS POLL: Which former governor will go down in history as the most disgraced?
See SPEECH on page 7
INDEX
ADVICE
BUSINESS
CITY/STATE
CLASSIFIED
COMICS
See QUINN on page 7
Correction
22
34
19
14
18
OBITUARIES
OPINION
PUZZLES
SPORTS
TV LISTINGS
24
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A State Journal-Register reporter was interviewing public relations expert Dennis Culloton Wednesday when the announcement was made that Gov. Rod Blagojevich planned to deliver a
statement to the Illinois Senate Thursday. The interview subject
was identified incorrectly in Thursday’s newspaper.
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© 2009, The State JournalRegister, GateHouse Media, Inc.
All rights reserved. Our 178th
year, No. 82
Friday, January 30, 2009
THE STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Springfield, Illinois
Page 7
SENATE IMPEACHMENT TRIAL
Association
will miss
‘champion of
health care’
By DEAN OLSEN
STAFF WRITER
[email protected]
Purchase this photo at www.sj-r.com/reprints
Shannon Kirshner/The State Journal-Register
Pat Quinn arrives Thursday at the Capitol alone as the state’s lieutenant governor. On the other hand, the media surround Rod Blagojevich, below, as he enters the
Statehouse for the final time as governor.
SPEECH
■ From page 1
Blagojevich stump speech that reached new
heights.
He glossed over the sordid criminal allegations on which federal authorities arrested him Dec. 9, cautioning that no wrongdoing had been proven and complaining that
nearly all the federal evidence against him
was excluded from the trial.
Blagojevich showed a rare glimpse of deference in acknowledging he had “maybe”
gone too far and pushed too hard in his battles with the legislature over health care and
other issues.
But he remained defiant, refusing to
resign or apologize for his conduct.
He repeatedly asked senators if he really
should be impeached for working to expand
health care access, import flu vaccines to
deal with a shortage and improve efficiency
in government. The governor said the
means sometimes weren’t popular, but they
were always to reach “right and moral”
ends.
He asked to be acquitted of the impeachment charge or at least given more time to
present witnesses and make his case under
fairer rules.
“Let me show you I have done nothing
wrong,” Blagojevich said.
He then left the chamber, deciding not to
stay as House prosecutor David Ellis used
Blagojevich’s penchant for the media spotlight against him.
Though acknowledging he couldn’t give
a speech as good as Blagojevich’s, Ellis portrayed two sides to the governor: the one
who soaks up the spotlight and says the
right things, and the other caught on tape
wheeling and dealing when he thought no
one was listening.
“He doesn’t think for one minute about
the people. He just thinks about himself,”
Ellis said.
After the Senate vote, Ellis said he had no
idea what he was going to say in his rebuttal until after Blagojevich spoke.
The governor scored points with lawmakers from both sides of the aisle for his
last-ditch effort.
“I think he did a masterful job. His presentation was the best I’ve seen any politician do in the state of Illinois,” said Sen.
Dan Rutherford, R-Chenoa.
But senators remained unmoved. They
criticized Blagojevich for the criminal activity he allegedly was caught on tape committing: trying to extort campaign contributions from a hospital executive in exchange
for state aid for a children’s hospital, and
attempting to benefit from his appointment
power of a replacement to Barack Obama in
the U.S. Senate.
“At its core, it is dishonest, and it should
be rejected by the members of this Senate,”
said Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton. “We must find
him unfit for this great office.”
Refusing to be one-upped, Blagojevich
returned home to Chicago and met again
with reporters Thursday night, after he
became ex-governor.
He vowed to “keep fighting to clear my
name” and asked the public to give him a
chance to “show you that I haven’t let you
down.” He suggested that next week he
could start spilling secrets about dealings
with state senators who voted to oust him.
New Gov. Pat Quinn got one last dig in at
Blagojevich before the day’s end. Shortly
after being sworn in, Quinn canceled
Blagojevich’s Illinois State Police security
detail and said Chicago police could do a
fine job protecting the former governor and
his family.
Ryan Keith can be reached at 788-1518.
Not everyone was celebrating the
departure of Rod Blagojevich as Illinois’ governor Thursday.
“Today is a sad day for all of us,”
said Philippe Largent, vice president
for government affairs at the Springfield-based Illinois Primary Health
Care Association. “It’s a conclusion of
a long state nightmare.
“As far as the governor being a
champion of health care, he was. In
fact, there are hundreds of thousands
of people who have access to health
care as a result of the kind of issues
the governor championed.”
The association, Largent said, took
no stance on whether the governor’s
health-care initiatives — including the
All Kids program and expansions of
FamilyCare — should have convinced
the Senate not to remove him from office.
The association also took no stand
on the governor’s recent use of executive power to expand FamilyCare eligibility without legislative approval,
Largent said. That expansion has
been ruled illegal by a Cook County
court, and state officials have asked
the Illinois Supreme Court to rule on
the issue.
The association represents 42
health centers, including Springfield’s
Capitol Community Health Center,
which operate more than 300 clinics
throughout the state and serve more
than 1 million patients annually.
Eighty percent of those patients
have family incomes below the federal poverty level, or less than $21,200 a
year for a family of four, and 32 percent of the clinics’ patients are uninsured, Largent said.
An estimated 1.7 million Illinoisans
— almost one out of every seven people — lack health insurance, and that
number is expected to grow as a result of job losses during the current
recession, Largent said.
Dean Olsen can be reached
at 788-1543.
Two receive
clemency on
Blagojevich’s
final day
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Purchase this photo at www.sj-r.com/reprints
David Spencer/The State Journal-Register
QUINN
■ From page 1
More than a dozen shuttered state
parks and historic sites that closed on
Nov. 30 should be reopened “with dispatch,” he said. Blagojevich had ordered
them closed because of budget problems.
Nature- and history-based tourism is
growing fast in the U.S., Quinn said, and
the dollars generated by tourism outweigh
the cost of running the sites.
His administration will somehow find
the money to reopen the shuttered facilities, Quinn vowed.
“You squeeze a nickel and lose a halfdollar,” he said. “That’s not smart government.”
Quinn said he also needs to determine
whether department heads and other top
officials appointed by Blagojevich should
be retained.
“Everybody will be under review,” he
said. “That’s the way it’s going to be.”
Sustained applause and loud cheers
greeted Quinn as he took the oath of office Thursday evening to become Illinois’
41st governor, but that ceremony actually
was the second time that day he had been
sworn in.
The first took place in his lieutenant
governor’s office to accommodate his
younger son, David, who had to leave
Springfield to catch a flight to London for
work. The second swearing-in occurred
about 5 p.m. in the House of Representatives chamber, attracting more than 100
people, including dozens of lawmakers
and all of the statewide constitutional officers.
“I want to say to the people of Illinois,
the ordeal is over,” he said.
Quinn, who arrived in Springfield on
Thursday morning as lieutenant governor,
spent much of the day in his Capitol office
with family.
Blagojevich’s speech during closing arguments of the Senate impeachment trial,
which called on senators to let him keep
his job, “came from the heart,” Quinn
said, but was not persuasive.
Purchase these photos at www.sj-r.com/reprints
Shannon Kirshner/SJ-R
ABOVE: Julia Filen, 8, left, Charlotte Quinn, 8, and Maria Quinn, 6, play on the
House floor after the swearing-in of Pat Quinn as governor. Charlotte and
Maria are the governor’s nieces.
BELOW: Patrick Quinn IV hugs his father after the swearing-in ceremony.
Quinn declined to say whether he plans
to run for governor in 2010.
“This should be the year of governance,
where people really work on repairing
damage and making things better,” he
said. “There’ll be plenty of time for politics
in 2010.”
State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias
praised Quinn’s ascension to the governorship. Quinn has proven his abilities to
work with others and provide “ethical
leadership,” Giannoulias said.
“No one would ever say he’s corrupt,”
he said.
Andy McKenna, head of the Illinois Republican Party, was more skeptical about
the new governor.
“He came to this role as a teammate of
Rod Blagojevich, so that does color his
leadership substantially,” McKenna said,
referring to Blagojevich’s pairing with
Quinn in the 2002 and 2006 general elections. “He was part of the leadership team
that’s put this state in a terrible financial
situation.”
Adriana Colindres can be reached
at 782-6292.
CHICAGO — Gov. Rod Blagojevich
granted clemency to a prominent
Chicago real estate developer and a
former drug dealer just hours before
the Illinois Senate voted to throw him
out of office.
Blagojevich ordered the criminal
conviction of Frederick Scott Latsko,
43, expunged from public records; he
served one year of probation after
being sentenced in 1985 on theft and
forgery charges and was pardoned in
1989 by then-Gov. Jim Thompson.
Latsko bought talk-show host
Oprah Winfrey’s 160-acre Indiana
farm in 2005.
State records show Latsko donated
more than $75,000 to the campaigns
of various politicians, including
Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, but
did not contribute to Blagojevich.
Before leaving office, Blagojevich
also pardoned and expunged the
record of Jimmie L. Beck, 40, convicted in Cook County on drug and battery charges.
Beck was sentenced to a year of
probation in 1986 on a battery conviction, and a year in prison in 2001 for a
drug conviction, according to a memorandum issued by the governor’s
office to the Cook County Circuit
Court.
Beck, a janitor at a West Side
homeless shelter run by the Chicago
Christian
Industrial
League,
approached Blagojevich when the
then-governor visited the shelter, the
Chicago Sun-Times reported on its
Web site.
Former Illinois first lady Patti
Blagojevich worked at the shelter
until she was fired this month.
Beck was “very happy” to learn of
the pardon, Mary Shaver, acting executive director of the Chicago Christian
Industrial League, told the SunTimes. “He was surprised.”
The Illinois Prisoner Review Board
had forwarded about 3,000 requests
for pardons to Blagojevich, but not
Beck’s or Latsko’s, board Chairman
Jorge Montes told the newspaper.
Latsko could not be reached for
comment Thursday night. A phone
listing could not be found for Beck.
Lucio Guerrero, a spokesman for
Blagojevich, did not return a phone
call seeking comment.