Prosecutors accused Ryan of steering big-money state contracts and leases, including a $25 million IBM computer deal, to his friends and political insiders while he was secretary of state in the 1990s and then as governor starting in 1999.
In return for that help, Ryan was rewarded with annual winter vacations in Jamaica, stays in Cancun and Palm Springs and gifts ranging from a golf bag to $145,000 in loans to his brother's business, prosecutors said.
Warner, 67, raked in $3 million from Ryan-era deals, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald — who during the trial was also leading the federal investigation into the leak of
CIA officer
Valerie Plame's identity.
It was the state's biggest political corruption trial in decades, and had its share of troubles.
In late March, months of testimony nearly went down the drain when the judge discovered two jurors had failed to mention arrests on their court questionnaires. Rather than declare a mistrial, U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer decided to replace the two jurors with alternates and, over the objection of Ryan's attorneys, ordered the jury to start deliberations over.
The new jury had deliberated for 10 days when it announced its verdict Monday.
Afterward, Ryan attorney Dan K. Webb, a former federal prosecutor, zeroed in on the judge's decision to replace the jurors.
"We're going to begin working immediately on post-trial motions to try to get this verdict overturned," Webb said.
During the trial, Webb had pounded on a theme that no one ever testified to seeing Ryan take a payoff. His powerful law firm, Winston & Strawn, represented Ryan for free — at an estimated cost of $10 million.
The corruption scandal that led to Ryan's downfall began over a decade ago with a much smaller focus: a federal investigation into a fiery van crash in Wisconsin that killed six children.
The deadly 1994 crash exposed a scheme inside the Illinois secretary of state's office in which unqualified truck drivers obtained licenses for bribes. Ryan was secretary of state at the time, and prosecutors would later argue that thousands of dollars in payoff money from the licenses went into a Ryan campaign fund.
The probe expanded over the next eight years into a wide-ranging corruption investigation that eventually reached Ryan in the governor's office.
Seventy-nine former state officials, lobbyists, truck drivers and others have been since charged. Before Ryan's trial, 74 had been convicted, including Ryan's longtime top aide, Scott Fawell.
Fawell was a star witness against Ryan and the author of a 1994 memo that prosecutor Patrick Collins called "the Magna Carta" of the racketeering scheme.
The memo urged Ryan, then-secretary of state, to replace inspector general Dean Bauer with someone who "won't ask about FR tickets" — political fundraising tickets. Bauer himself pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and acknowledged the government could prove he had spent seven years covering up scandals to spare Ryan personal and political embarrassment.
Even as he faced federal charges back home, Ryan accepted speaking invitations across the country and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his criticism of the death penalty.
