Local News

Ryan To Serve Prison Sentence In Wisconsin

Former Governor Was Originally Assigned To Serve In Minnesota

CHICAGO (AP) ― Dan Rostenkowski, former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, once called it "my Oxford education."

But there's not much to laugh about at the federal correctional institution at Oxford, Wis., where former Gov. George Ryan is assigned.

Ryan got word from federal officials that he'll serve his corruption sentence at Oxford, his attorneys said Friday.

"We're pleased for the family's sake that it's Oxford," said Ryan's chief counsel, former Gov. James R. Thompson.

Ryan had originally been assigned to a federal prison camp farther north, outside Duluth, Minn., a long haul from the family home in Kankakee. Oxford, where Ryan is to begin serving his 6 1/2-year corruption sentence on Wednesday unless he can get bail, is within a day's drive of Chicago.

Its proximity is the main reason Oxford is a favorite among politicians, mobsters and other big shots who for years have requested that minimum-security prison when they have to do federal time. Judges can recommend it. But deciding who gets to go to the favorite big house of Chicago's criminal elite is up to the Bureau of Prisons.

Actually, the 73-year-old Ryan is hoping he never has to go to any prison -- even Oxford. He has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to set bail. Attorneys say that's a long shot.

Ryan and co-defendant Larry Warner have been free on bond since their April 2006 corruption convictions. Remaining free on bond pending appeal is unusual enough. And Thompson himself says he doesn't think the high court has set bail in 35 years.

But Justice John Paul Stevens has asked the government to reply to the request for bail from Ryan and Warner. He gave the U.S. solicitor general's office until 2 p.m. Monday to come up with its brief.

Ryan was convicted of racketeering, fraud and other charges for steering big-money state contracts to Warner and other friends, using state money and state workers to run his campaigns and killing an investigation of bribes paid in exchange for truck driver's licenses.

Prosecutors traced $170,000 of the money to the Citizens for Ryan campaign committee, which itself was later convicted of racketeering.


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