By Christopher Wills and John O’Connor, Associated Press
Springfield, Illinois (AP) – The former governor of Illinois, George Ryan, disgraced by a corruption scandal which landed him in prison but announced by some for compensating the corridor of the death of the state, died. He was 91 years old.
Kankakee County Coroner Robert Gessner, a family friend, said Ryan died on Friday afternoon at his home in Kankakee, where he received palliative care.
Ryan started a small town pharmacist but ended up managing one of the largest states in the country. Along the way, the Hollen Republican on crime experienced a death penalty and won international praise by interrupting executions as governor and, finally, emptying the death corridor.
He served only one mandate of governor from 1999 to 2003, which ended in the midst of the charges he used from government offices to reward friends, gain elections and hide the corruption that played a role in the ardent death of six children. Finally, Ryan was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to 6 and a half years in federal prison.
During his more than five years late, Ryan worked as a carpenter and befriends prisoners, many of whom were addressed as “governor”. He was released in January 2013, weeks before his 79th anniversary, thinner and more moderate air.
He had been provocative heading towards the prison. At night before his entry, Ryan insisted that he was innocent and prove it. But when Ryan asked President George W. Bush to give him a leniency in 2008, he said that he had accepted the verdict against him and felt a “deep shame”.
“I apologize to the inhabitants of Illinois for my conduct,” said Ryan at the time.
Ryan was still serving his sentence when his wife, Lura Lynn, died in June 2011. He was briefly released to be in his death bed but was not allowed to attend his funeral. The day he left the prison and returned to Kankakee’s home when he and his wife had raised their children, one of his grandchildren set him an urn containing his wife’s ashes.
Born in Iowa and raised in Kankakee, Ryan married his high school darling, followed his father by becoming a pharmacist and had six children. Those who knew Ryan described him as the final father and the neighbor, someone who let local children use his basketball court or rushed to Dairy Queen to buy treats when they missed the truck of ice cream.
“He even proposed to deliver the newspapers,” said Ben Angelo, a newspaper delivery man, when Ryan presented himself to the post of governor. “He was serious.”
In 1968, Ryan was appointed to fill an unpired mandate on the county council, starting a rapid increase in politics. Finally, he was president of the Illinois Chamber, Lieutenant-Governor, Secretary of State and, finally, Governor.
A joyful politician from the old school, Ryan underlined pragmatism on ideology. He worked with officials from both parties and concluded agreements on the golf course or during the evening of cigars and alcohol.
Ryan helped block the equal rights amendment in the early 1980s during his mandate as president of Illinois House, triggering some of the most lively demonstrations ever seen in the Capitol.
“They wrote my name in the blood on the ground in front of the house, in front of the governor’s office,” said Ryan. “They were trying, overtime, frankly.”
His desire to put aside the Orthodoxy of the Party sometimes put him in contradiction with more conservative Republicans.
He led an effort failed in 1989 to bring the general assembly to restrict the assault weapons. He supported the expansion of the game. He became the first governor to visit Cuba since Fidel Castro took power. And in 2000, after having signed the execution of a killer, he decided not to realize. He imposed a moratorium on executions and began to examine the reforms of a judicial system which has repeatedly condemned innocent men to die.
In the end, Ryan decided that no reform would provide the certainty he wanted. In almost his last act as governor, he emptied the death corridor with pardons and switches in 2003.
“Because the Illinois death penalty system is arbitrary and capricious – and therefore immoral – I will no longer break the machinery of death,” said Ryan.
Ryan found himself mentioned as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize at the same time as the federal prosecutors approached. Before the end of the year, he would be accused of taking gains, gifts and holidays in exchange for the management of government contracts and Cronies leases, as well as lying to the investigators and cheating his taxes.
A large part of the illegal activity took place during the two Mandates of Ryan as Secretary of State of Illinois, including the death of six children in 1994. They burned to death after their mini-duties struck a part which fell from a truck whose driver obtained his illegally license from the Ryan office.
Federal investigators found that Ryan had transformed the office of the Secretary of State into one arm of his political campaign, putting pressure on employees for contributions-some of whom came by bribes of unqualified truck drivers for licenses. After the death of the children, Ryan also emptied the part of his office responsible for the rooting of corruption.
Then, as governor, he directed millions of dollars of state leases and to contract political initiates who in turn provided gifts such as trips to a Jamaican complex and $ 145,000 in business loans from his brother, investigators revealed. He was sentenced to all accusations on April 17, 2006.
The father of the six dead criticized Ryan’s attitude at the time.
“There was no remorse for George Ryan after the verdict. It did not surprise me. It was the same attitude of Ryan, a chip on the shoulder,” said Reverend Scott Willis. “It makes a little easier to feel the exaltation. His attitude confirms that the verdict was right.”
The anger against Ryan weakened the Republicans for years and energized the campaign of governor of a young charismatic democrat who promised to clean Springfield – Rod Blagojevich. Later, while federal investigators surveyed his own behavior, Blagojevich would call on Ryan to grant a leniency and released from prison.
Wills, a former member of the Associated Press staff, was the main editor of this Bill.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
