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Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, disgraced by a corruption scandal that landed him in prison yet heralded by some for clearing the state’s death row, has died. He was 91. Kankakee County Coroner Robert Gessner, a family friend, said Ryan died Friday afternoon at his home in Kankakee, where he was receiving hospice care. Ryan started out a small-town pharmacist but wound up running one of the country’s largest states. Along the way, the tough-on-crime Republican experienced a conversion on the death penalty and won international praise by halting executions as governor and, eventually, emptying death row.

Many find it shocking the Department of Justice (DOJ) could be capable of ginning up false allegations against a former president in a previous election and would again do the same prior to the 2024 election. This shock, however, is a mark of just how drastically conservatives have failed to recognize the long decline of the DOJ and its ultimate transformation into a political subsidiary of a radicalized Democratic Party. Conservatives would do well to observe seminal moments that have led the country’s top law enforcement entity to its present dire state. In that review, all roads ultimately lead back...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A lawyer for former media baron Conrad Black urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn his fraud conviction, and several justices asked whether the federal law at issue was too vague. The Canadian-born Black, a member of Britain's House of Lords, has been in prison since March 2008, when he began serving a 6 1/2-year sentence for fraud and obstruction of justice. Attorney Miguel Estrada, representing Black and two ex-colleagues who were found guilty of defrauding shareholders of one-time newspaper publishing giant Hollinger International Inc, argued before the Supreme Court that all convictions in the...

A wrongfully convicted man filed a $40 million lawsuit on Tuesday against Northwestern University, a former journalism professor, a private investigator and an attorney, accusing them of framing him for a double murder to get another man released. Alstory Simon, 64, of Ohio, claims in the lawsuit that he was the victim of unethical tactics by a team focused on freeing another man in what became a celebrated Illinois wrongful conviction case. Simon was imprisoned in 1999 after confessing to the 1982 murder of two people in a park, and spent more than 15 years behind bars before he was...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Tuesday, October 29, 2002 KEY BLAGOJEVICH SUPPORT GROUP CAUGHT TRYING TO TELL PEOPLE GEORGE RYAN IS ON THE BALLOT FOR GOVERNOR SPRINGFIELD - Since the beginning of the campaign for Governor, Rod Blagojevich has been trying to cynically confuse the public about George Ryan and Jim Ryan. Now, the Illinois AFL-CIO, one of Blagojevich’s key support groups, has been caught distributing a mailing that portrays George Ryan as the candidate for Governor. "Nearly every newspaper in the state says that Jim Ryan is better suited to be governor of Illinois than Rod Blagojevich," said Dan Curry, Jim...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced Wednesday that Khalid Al-Jawary, a dangerous Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorist convicted of a 1973 New York City bomb plot and implicated in multiple terrorist attacks spanning two decades, was deported to Sudan. He had served only half of his thirty year sentence. Recently declassified information additionally reveals that Al-Jawary got help from New York's Iraqi diplomatic mission in communicating with his PLO masters. In March of 1973, Al-Jawary and possible accomplices planted three powerful car bombs: two along 5th Avenue near Israeli-owned banks, and one at Kennedy Airport. Timed to explode upon...

Imprisoned former Gov. George Ryan is known around the world for clearing Illinois’ Death Row in 2003 and imposing a moratorium on the death penalty. But the governor who pardoned more than 200 people admitted in a recently released court deposition that he “didn’t understand” the difference between two major types of pardons and that he was declaring a Chicago inmate innocent by the way he pardoned him . . .

Ryan’s press secretary dodged more shots than a goalie in the National Hockey League. Scandals became daily fodder for the press. Senator Peter Fitzgerald performed one of the most statesmanlike acts in recent memory by pressing for the appointment of Patrick Fitzgerald as US Attorney to replace Scott Lassar (who accepted a position at the prestigious law firm defending corrupt politicians and white collar criminals). Senator Fitzgerald incurred the wrath of the entire political class in Illinois in making his selection. Democrats and Republicans alike, with prominent persons such as Ryan, US Senator Durbin, House Speaker Hastert and many others...

Despite receiving an "outpouring" of "overwhelmingly negative" feedback from the public, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin is asking President Bush to commute former Gov. George Ryan's sentence to time served.... Durbin said he isn't asking that George Ryan be pardoned for his crimes, but that he be freed from prison after serving just one year of a 6 1/2 year sentence.... Ryan was convicted in 2006 in a racketeering fraud scheme. "I would speak out for justice in any case brought to my attention," Durbin said. However, Durbin said he couldn't remember a time that he's written a president, asking him...

"Durbin may ask Bush to commute Ryan sentence" In eight words this Chicago Tribune headline (Nov. 26) summed up everything you need to know about Illinois politics. Yes, that is "Durbin" as in Dick Durbin, Illinois' senior U.S. Senator, a 25-year Democrat member of Congress, and the national co-chairman of the Obama presidential campaign. And the Ryan is none other than George Ryan, the disgraced former Republican governor sentenced to 6.5 years of breaking big rocks into little ones for operating a taxpayer-funded den of thieves as Secretary of State and then as Governor. Durbin has all but said that...

Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who rode into state office pledging to clean up the corruption of his predecessor, said today that President George W. Bush should commute the federal prison sentence of former Gov. George Ryan to time served as an act of compassion. Blagojevich, making a Thanksgiving Day appearance at the Chicago Christian Industrial League, contended Ryan had paid "a significant price" for what he termed "mistakes." Citing the frail health of Ryan's wife, Lura Lynn, and the 74-year-old former governor's health concerns, Blagojevich said a commutation by Bush would be a "fine decision."

Family members, friends and lawyers for convicted ex-Gov. George Ryan are pushing a plea for clemency during the final weeks of the Bush administration.

The highest court in the land refused to hear his plea. Now only one person can help George Ryan: President Bush. » Click to enlarge image Former Gov. Jim Thompson will ask President Bush to commute former Gov. George Ryan's prison sentence. The Supreme Court rejected Ryan's appeal to overturn his conviction on corruption charges on Tuesday. (Sun-Times) RELATED STORIESComplete Ryan trial coverage Pardon vs. commutation What's the difference between a pardon and a commutation? Pardon: Erases a conviction, such as a felony. Commutation: Conviction stands, but erases prison term, or trades a longer sentence with a shorter one. (Gov....

CHICAGO (AP) -- Dan Rostenkowski, former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, once called it "my Oxford education." But there's not much to laugh about at the federal correctional institution at Oxford, Wis., where former Gov. George Ryan is assigned. Ryan got word Thursday from federal officials that he'll serve his corruption sentence at Oxford, his attorneys said Friday. "We're pleased for the family's sake that it's Oxford," said Ryan's chief counsel, former Gov. James R. Thompson. Ryan had been assigned to a federal prison camp farther north, outside Duluth, Minn., a long haul from the family home...

Chicago (AP) -- A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied former Gov. George Ryan's request to remain free on bail while he appeals his conviction on corruption charges. The ruling means Ryan will likely have to go to prison next week. "The voluminous record here demonstrates that the appellants were guilty of the crimes with which they were charged," Judge Diane P. Wood wrote in the opinion issued by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Ryan, 73, has been free on bail since he was convicted in 2006 of steering state contracts to friends, using tax dollars to run...

Chicago (AP) -- A former death row inmate who came to symbolize a broken criminal justice system was sentenced Tuesday to 30 years in prison for trading in guns and drugs. Aaron Patterson, 43, gained international fame when he was one of four men pardoned by then-Gov. George Ryan, who also reduced to life in prison the death sentences of every inmate on Illinois' death row. But in 2005 he was convicted on the new charges, and federal prosecutors claim he coordinated gang activities while he was in prison. Patterson entered the courtroom Tuesday yelling and cursing at his attorneys...

Former Gov. George Ryan suffered a major setback Friday when a federal judge denied his request to remain free on bond while the appeal of his conviction winds through court. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer ruled today that Ryan and businessman Lawrence Warner must report to prison in January as she had ordered at their sentencings last month. Ryan, 72, who was sentenced to 6½ years in prison, is scheduled to surrender to federal prison on Jan. 4. Warner is to begin his nearly 3½-year prison term on Jan. 16.

Former Gov. George Ryan was sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison today following his historic conviction for steering lucrative state business to cronies in return for vacations, gifts and other benefits for himself and his family. "People of this state expected better, and I let them down," Ryan said in a statement delivered to the courtroom before the sentencing. Federal prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 8 to 10 years. But defense attorneys argued before U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer that even a sentence of up to 30 months could deprive Ryan, 72, of the last healthy...

Why was there even mild surprise last week when a jury convicted former Illinois Gov. George Ryan of corruption? When Illinois juries get their hands on a governor, they tend to put him away.Of our seven prior governors, three now have been convicted. In Illinois, jurors are batting .750. So, give jurors a chance and they'll take down corrupt governors. Which makes me wonder about any bewilderment that this jury convicted Ryan on all counts. Look at history: just three governors before Republican Ryan was Democrat Dan Walker, who served 17 months for fraudulently obtaining bank loans. But that was...

He was searched by guards who ordered him to "strip, squat and spread." He was threatened by fellow inmates when he balked that they were bucking the breakfast line. His job was scrubbing toilets, but twice a day he had to pick up cigarette butts with a nail on a wooden rod marked "Governor's Stick." So don't tell former Illinois Gov. Dan Walker that minimum security prison is a picnic or a Club Fed. He calls it "brutal" -- so brutal that he contemplated suicide while inside. "It's what it does to you personally," Walker said. "It's not like 'hard...