Ryan pal balked at registering as lobbyist despite key role, witnesses say
December 19, 2005

George Ryan's friend played a key role in landing millions of dollars in state contracts for two clients but balked at registering as a lobbyist, witnesses said Monday.

The testimony concerning Ryan friend Larry Warner came as the former governor's racketeering and fraud trial went into its thirteenth week.

It focused on the role of Warner in landing a $26 million state contract for IBM Corp. and a $20 million-plus contract for Viisage Technologies Inc.

IBM sales executive Bart Lambert testified that Warner balked at registering as a lobbyist, even though officials of the giant computer maker urged him to do so, citing state law.

Lambert said Warner finally agreed to do so after the state's lobbying disclosure law was tightened but only after bickering about it with company officials.

Yona Wieder, a former Viisage marketing vice president, testified that Warner did most of the work in landing the contract to provide the state with a digital imaging system for drivers licenses that uses high-tech equipment to cut down on identification errors and fraud.

But he said that Warner arranged to have another man registered as the company's lobbyist.

Ryan, 71, and Warner, 67, are charged with racketeering, mail fraud and other offenses. The indictment alleges that when Ryan was secretary of state he steered big-money contracts and leases to a small number of favored friends and received free vacations and gifts in exchange.

Ryan and Warner say that nothing they did was illegal.

But federal prosecutors say the IBM and Viisage contracts are examples of how Ryan's friends got rich by landing contracts through the use of clout.

Wieder testified that Viisage contracted with a lawyer friend of Warner's, Irwin Jann, to serve as the company's consultant. But the consulting money was passed through to Warner.

Prosecutors showed jurors a letter from Warner to lobbyist Arthur "Ron" Swanson, an old friend of Ryan's, offering Swanson a $36,000 share of the money that Jann was paying him.

And Wieder testified that on instructions from Warner he registered Jann and not Warner with state officials as the company's lobbyist in Springfield.

Prosecutors sought to strengthen the image of Warner as crucial to the contract in the minds of the jurors by calling to the stand Cathy Adduci, wife of prominent Chicago lobbyist Al Ronan.

Adduci testified that she and Ronan tried to get the drivers license imaging contract for a partnership between their employer, Unisys Inc., and computer maker NBSI.

Ronan was a major Ryan campaign fundraiser and a close friend of Ryan's chief of staff, Scott Fawell. His firm and a former assistant and Fawell pleaded guilty to taking part in a bid-rigging scheme involving the $800 million expansion of the McCormick Place exhibition center.

Ronan has been accused of no wrongdoing in the investigation.

Adduci testified that she and Ronan met with Ryan to tout the Unisys-NBSI efforts to land the contract that eventually went to Viisage.

As she and Ronan were leaving Ryan's office, she said, "Secretary Ryan asked him to come back into the office and he did and I waited outside."

When Ronan came back, she said, he had some surprising news.

"We were with the wrong partner, we were on the wrong horse and we needed to reconsider who we were partnering with," she said. She said Ronan said they needed to contract Warner.

Her testimony suggested that Ryan was already thinking of Warner -- whose name was new to her -- as the one who would get the contract for his client.

She said they did contact Warner and later he put them together with Viisage technical people, but they concluded that a partnership with Viisage would be a bad fit and talks ended.