George Ryan Trial Time Line

Events that led to the Trial of George Ryan

1992: Cook County State’s Attorney Jack O’Malley warned Secretary of State George Ryan of possible corruption in the Licensing Division. Ryan demurs.

1993: The Lake County State’s Attorney, working with Secretary of State Inspector General Dean Bauer, raids a Libertyville licensing office. They found that scores of personal drivers licenses were sold for campaign contributions.

1994: While driving on I-94 near Milwaukee, the Rev. Duane Willis struck a tail light assembly that had fallen from a rig driven by Ricardo Guzman. The Willis van burst into flames, killing six of the Willis children. Guzman had ignored warnings from other truck drivers about the loose assembly. He had obtained his license in exchange for bribes paid to Secretary of State employees

1998: U.S. Attorney Scott Lassar announces the first indictments of the Operation Safe Road investigation against two current and one retired Secretary of State employees. All three are convicted; one, Mary Ann Mastrodomenico, admits to selling more than $50,000 in campaign fundraising tickets. Prosecutors ultimately allege that more than $170,000 in bribes found their way into George Ryan’s campaign fund.

1999: Further Safe road indictments reach through four driving schools, the Illinois Department of Transportation and more than a dozen Secretary of State employees and supervisors. The number of indictees reaches 29; all are convicted of charges including bribery, extortion, and conspiracy. Among them: Marion Siebel, who admitted to selling $82,000 in campaign fundraising tickets, and George Velasco, who admitted to selling $25,000 in campaign fundraising tickets.

2000: Former Secretary of State Inspector General and long-time George Ryan confidante Dean Bauer is indicted on charges that he obstructed justice by blocking investigations of corruption, firing inspectors who were too thorough, and destroying evidence, all in order to protect Ryan. Bauer pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a prison term.

2001: In March, Gov. George Ryan announced that his political fund, Citizens for George Ryan, would no longer accept campaign contributions from state employees. Previously, the fund had held two fundraisers for state employees each year, charging $50 for tickets. Receipts at that level are included in campaign finance disclosure reports as “non-itemized” contributions; Citizens for George Ryan had been showing hundreds of thousands of dollars each year in non-itemized donations. After the ban on state employee giving, non-itemized giving to Citizens for George Ryan fell to just $13,000. In June, he filed an amendment to a previous semi-annual disclosure report announcing that he had discovered $156,423.70 in a previously unreported bank account; he has yet to account for the origins of that money. And Operation Safe road continued to move ahead. By the end of the year, 42 individuals, including over two dozen public employees and one dozen driving schools, had been indicted. All were later convicted, save two who fled prosecution.

2002: The investigation took a new turn when U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald announced indictments against George Ryan’s campaign fund, his former Chief of Staff and campaign manager Scott Fawell, and his former campaign deputy manager Richard Juliano. Juliano pleaded guilty; Fawell and the campaign fund pleaded not guilty but were convicted at trial. One month after the Fawell indictment came another round of indictments against high ranking and friends of Ryan, including Ryan’s current co-defendant Larry Warner, former Illinois State Medical Society Legislative Director Donald Udstuen, and middleman Alan Drazek, who were alleged to have rigged service contracts and property rentals for the Secretary of State’s office. Udstuen and Drazek promptly pleaded guilty. A month after the Warner indictment was released, barely two months after the Fawell indictment, came yet another round, against political operative Roger Stanley and two of his associates. Stanley was alleged to have bribed his way to several Metra contracts. In July, Gov. George Ryan announced, via an official press release from his public office, that he would create a legal defense fund. His political committee essentially ceased fundraising operations, but the legal defense fund was not subject to the same public disclosure requirements. Despite promises to make public the names of donors, the Fund has never released disclosure reports.

2003: In March, Ryan’s former Chief of Staff, Scott Fawell, was convicted of all charges of corruption relating to the Secretary of State’s office. In July he was sentenced to 6 _ years in prison; in December, federal investigators announced concerns about corruption at the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority (“McPier”), which was run by Fawell since his appointment in the waning days of the Ryan administration. In December, the U.S. Attorney indicted George Ryan in an amendment to its previous indictment of Larry Warner.

2004: In January, Scott Fawell was indicted again, this time with the Ronan Potts lobbying firm and its associate, Julie Starsiak, together with a construction firm for rigging McPier contracts in exchange for bribes. By year’s end, Fawell would announce plans to cooperate with the government in future prosecutions.