From the Chicago Sun Times

Fawell: 'There is politics in every decision' 
 
October 13, 2005 
 
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH Legal Affairs Reporter 
 
 The secretary of state's office under George Ryan and Scott Fawell was no dirtier and no more politicized than any other government office in the country, Fawell testified Wednesday in Ryan's corruption trial. 
 
 Trying to tear down four days of Fawell's detailed testimony about sweetheart contracts and leases Ryan approved that enriched his pals Harry Klein and co-defendant Larry Warner, Ryan's attorney Dan Webb asked Fawell if Ryan engaged in politics any more than President Bush or any elected official in the country. 
 
 Fawell agreed it's normal for elected officials to reward supporters. 
 
 "I've been involved in politics all my life. It's all politics -- jobs, contracts, it's happening today, it's gonna happen next year," Fawell testified. "There is politics in every decision in government. Every time you have an elected official, every decision you have to consider the politics of everything you do and who's involved and how it's perceived. [Government and politics are] as mixed as you can get. If you hurt yourself politically, you won't last long in the business." 
 
'I wanted to keep her out of jail' 
 
For a second day, Webb hammered away at his theme that prosecutors put inordinate pressure on Fawell to testify against his mentor Ryan. And for a second day, Fawell choked back tears as he admitted cutting the deal with prosecutors to testify to keep his fiancee out of jail so she would not be separated from her children. 
 
 "What we were trying to do is put this misery behind us and be together," Fawell said. "I wanted to keep her out of jail." 
 
 Webb lost a battle to introduce Fawell's quotes from a phone conversation he had from prison in South Dakota with prosecutor Patrick Collins in which Fawell said he would "go to his grave knowing" the government put up witnesses who lied at his trial. Collins and other prosecutors argued Webb had already gone too far the day before in letting Fawell suggest it was more than his opinion that witnesses lied at his trial. 
 
 Webb argued to U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer that the foundation of his cross-examination was that Fawell believed -- rightly or wrongly -- that witnesses lied to curry favor with prosecutors at his trial and he had to do the same at Ryan's. Pallmeyer blocked the "grave" quote. 
 
 Webb forged ahead, using maps and charts to question why Fawell was put on a circuitous route from South Dakota to Oklahoma City to Chicago, and to Terre Haute, Ind., to Oklahoma City back to South Dakota over 12 weeks before he agreed to cooperate -- then got direct two-hour flights from South Dakota to Chicago once he began cooperating. 
 
 Prosecutors said they resented the implication they had anything to do with his travel arrangements, which are handled by the U.S. Marshals Service. 
 
 When he got on a bus to head back to South Dakota, he instead found himself shackled on a bus with "bank robbers and other fine individuals" that pulled into the maximum-security federal prison at Terre Haute. Just 50 yards beyond the prison was a minimum-security facility he thought they might bring him to. Instead, they put him in "The Hole." 
 
 "I was sitting in an 8-by-6 cell 24 hours a day," Fawell said. "I couldn't sleep because everyone was yelling. People were yelling down to me, wondering what I was doing there." 
 
 Out his small window, he could see the "death chamber" that had held Timothy McVeigh. He figured the trip was designed to "put pressure" on him to testify against Ryan, he said. He agreed to testify, believing it will spare Andrea Coutretsis from prison. 
 
Wrote letter to fiancee's judge 
 
 "You know that if you did not give information . . . they found helpful on their case, you knew you weren't going to get a deal from the government, were you?" Webb asked. 
 
 "Yes, that's correct," Fawell said. 
 
 "That's certainly one lesson you had learned from your trial that you told us about yesterday, isn't that correct?" Webb said. 
 
 "Yes," Fawell agreed. 
 
 "You would do anything you could to help her, is that correct?" Webb asked. 
 
 "Yes," Fawell said. 
 
 Asked if he wrote a letter to Coutretsis' judge saying he could not bear the thought of her being in jail for even one day, Fawell hesitated, his face turned red, and he croaked a strangled "Yes!" 
 
 The judge called a recess as Fawell looked down, removed his glasses and wiped his face. 
 
 Asked if he cut out the wisecracks after his first day on the stand so prosecutors would not revoke their deal with him, Fawell admitted he did some "soul-searching." 
 
 "I don't want to give anyone in this whole process an excuse to double-cross me," he said. 
 
Witness' laugh lines cut down, but not gone 
 
 Scott Fawell, the government's star witness in the corruption trial of former Gov. George Ryan, has cut way down on the one-liners he interjected on his first day of testimony two weeks ago, but he offered a few more Wednesday: 
 
 *Referring again to his accommodations at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, he said, "This is not a lovely place to be." 
 
 *He said he took a bus ride to a maximum-security federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., with "bank robbers and other fine individuals." 
 
 *Asked if his testimony had to be "useful" to the government, Fawell smiled and said, "Truthful is more the argument I tried to make for them. They may not like what I'm saying, but...." 
 
 *After Fawell's fiancee pleaded guilty to a felony, prison officials would not let her visit him, saying he was not supposed to have contact with other felons. He responded, "We're all criminals." He said he never saw the letter prosecutor Patrick Collins sent the warden asking him to put Andrea Coutretsis back on the guest list because Fawell was cooperating. "I'm not usually on their 'CCs,' I don't think," Fawell quipped. 
 
 *Asked if he considered himself "politically savvy," Fawell chuckled and said, "I certainly THOUGHT I was." 
 
 *Asked if he toned down his funny-man act from the first day of testimony to the second day so prosecutors would not revoke the deal to keep his fiancee out of jail, Fawell said he did some "soul-searching" and decided to "change his tone." "I certainly saw the beating I took in the press.... This is all a crap shoot. I hope I get my deal, but I don't know." 
 
HIGHLIGHTS 
 
Prosecutors: Bar quotes from lead witness Scott Fawell saying he "knows" witnesses lied at his trial. 
 
Defense: Has Fawell tell how prosecutors "pressured" him to testify. 
 
Next up: Fawell's cross-examination continues Monday when the trial resumes.