State Corruption v. City Corruption
By Amy Hart in News on Sep 27, 2005 4:59PM
Are you sick of hearing about corruption at City Hall? Well, that’s okay, because you can take a break from it by focusing on corruption at the state level instead. Governor Blagojevich and his predecessor, George Ryan, are teaming up to bring you a 1-2 corruption punch that aims to take Mayor Daley out of the news.
First up for the state corruption tag team is former governor Ryan. Jury selection in the Ryan trial stemming from Operation Safe Road began last week, and is expected to wrap up today, with opening statements probably coming on Wednesday.
The process of selecting a jury has been a long one, with some jurors being excused for following stories about the Ryan trial, and others because of the financial difficulties and childcare issues a four month long trial would present for them.
One potential juror, a substitute school teacher, revealed on Monday that she witnessed Secretary of State employees helping driver’s license applicants cheat on tests. Chicagoist is going to take a wild guess and say that the Ryan defense team does not want that person on the jury. Another potential juror stated on a questionnaire that the person he most admires is the guitarist and drummer in the group King Crimson, which is total BS because everybody knows that the lead vocalist is way better than both the guitarist and drummer combined.
Ryan has taken a couple of blows with the judge ruling that the prosecution can bring up the “wads of cash” Ryan carried around after becoming Secretary of State in 1991, and that prosecutors do not have to show specific “this for that” arrangements by Ryan, but rather that he generally took bribes for governmental favors.
As if that wasn’t enough, former Ryan BFF Scott Fawell has claimed that Ryan knew of the “master list” that tracked political favors, and aimed to take the buying and selling of political fund raising tickets on state time to “a higher level.”
Obviously feeling left out, Blago has gotten into the corruption game as well. The governor has been linked to corruption in the Illinois Teachers' Retirement System, and has denied having any role in the shakedown of investment firms doing business with the pension fund.
Blago is also in the midst of a grand jury investigation trying to determine if he was part of a scheme in which state appointments were traded for campaign donations. The governor is being represented by Chicago attorney Bruce Meckler, whose firm has donated handsomely to the campaigns of Blagojevich and officials in charge of the grand jury probe.
This round goes to state corruption.