Feds: Defense an 'extreme makeover'
His voice at times dripping with disdain, the lead prosecutor in George Ryan's corruption trial delivered a searing closing argument Thursday, portraying the former governor's time in office as one filled with lies, fraud and deceit.
As Ryan grew increasingly red-faced, Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Collins said defense lawyers over the last two days had twisted the truth, giving Ryan and his pal Larry Warner "an extreme makeover."
In a dramatic and passionate argument that seemed to capture a packed courtroom, Collins mocked Ryan lawyer Dan Webb for repeatedly asking "who cares?" when Webb picked apart the feds' racketeering and fraud charges.
"Who cares? Who cares, ladies and gentlemen?" Collins asked a captivated jury. "You decide."
Collins dropped responsibility for a huge licenses-for-bribes scandal onto Ryan's lap, saying Ryan knew about fraud in his office early on and did nothing about it to save himself politically.
Collins said Ryan scrapped the inspector general's department -- the investigative arm of the secretary of state's office -- and that Ryan was ultimately culpable for derailing a probe into a 1994 fatal crash in Wisconsin that killed six children. The trucker in the crash, Ricardo Guzman, got his license through a bribe at the McCook licensing facility. The supervisor there was a top Ryan fund-raiser who was later convicted of selling licenses for bribes.
Guzman did not speak English and did not understand warnings that a rear assembly was about to fall off his truck. It did, and it hit a van, killing six children inside.
Jurors did not hear about six children dying, only that it was a fatal crash.
"Who made the decision? Collins asked of the killed probe. "George Ryan did."
Collins turned and pointed straight at Ryan, who became flushed. "Not Scott Fawell. George Ryan."
Collins called a 1994 memo to Ryan from Fawell, his onetime chief of staff, the "magna carta" and "constitution" of how Ryan ran his shop. The memo came one month after the Wisconsin crash. In it, Fawell tells Ryan to get rid of inspectors who look at Ryan's fund-raising techniques and put people in who "won't screw our friends."
Collins told jurors to write down the evidence number for the memo, and many furiously scribbled. Collins said a man of integrity would have fired Fawell. But Ryan kept promoting him.
A few months later, Ryan disbanded the inspector general's department, and a federal investigation found no evidence Ryan's office ever investigated the crash.
"They should have been throwing 10 people at this case," Collins fumed. "But there was nothing, zero, zip, nothing."
Collins at times addressed Ryan but kept looking at the jury.
"How about gutting your [inspector general's] office from 20 to seven?" Collins said.
"That's fraud, ladies and gentleman. That's a lie."
When Collins began talking about the inspector general office, Webb, across the room, stretched his arms and let out a quiet yawn.
Not far away sat Scott and Janet Willis, whose children died in the crash that was never investigated by the inspector general. Their eyes filled with tears as Collins spoke.
Collins pointed to a 1994 memo from Ryan's handpicked inspector general, Dean Bauer, indicating Ryan knew back then that Guzman may have gotten his license illegally.
"This was a big deal. Is there anything that is more serious than a CDL license being sold and that person causing a fatal incident?" Collins asked incredulously.
"Well, what happened?" he said.
Up popped a photo of Marion Seibel with Ryan -- the photo was a "thank you" to Seibel for raising $80,000 through campaign fund-raising tickets. Seibel, a McCook supervisor, was later charged with taking bribes for licenses, and some of that money ended up in Ryan's campaign fund.
Collins said Ryan was a man of pretense, who sat across from federal investigators and lied about paying his own way for a Jamaican vacation with state businessman Harry Klein but then took cash from Klein "behind a curtain."
Ryan told the feds he paid for those vacations. The feds say he lied because Ryan set up a scheme where he wrote Klein a check and Klein reimbursed him in cash. Ryan didn't tell them he got his money back.
Webb had chastised the government, saying he didn't want to get literal, but the feds never specifically asked whether Klein reimbursed Ryan in cash.
"Let's get literal?" Collins asked. "Let's get real."
Collins only got about 45 minutes into his argument and will conclude today.
But when he finished Thursday, Scott Willis, sitting in the courtroom as he has with his wife every day this week, cracked a broad smile and said softly:
"I feel much better."