Oct 25, 2007 4:55 pm US/Central
Politicians Preview What Ryan Could Face In Prison
Ryan Petitions For Assignment In Oxford, Wis., Rather Than Time In Duluth, Minn.
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
George Ryan would not be the first Illinois governor to go to prison.
CBS 2's Derrick Blakley talked to other politicians who have done time about what Ryan faces behind bars.
Former governor George Ryan has already been assigned inmate number 16627-424 at the federal prison camp in Duluth, Minn.
Speaking by phone from Mexico, another former Illinois governor, Dan Walker, who served 18 months at Duluth, told me, it's no resort.
"I hope sincerely he doesn't encounter the kind of mindless brutality I did at Duluth," Walker said.
Walker says he saw a prisoner gang raped at night while on-looking guards did nothing. And Walker was humiliatingly strip searched, outdoors, on the frozen prison yard, in full view of other inmates.
"Squat and spread it was called, that was the order the guard would give: squat and spread," Walker said. "You can use your imagination."
By contrast, former 25th Ward Ald. Ambrosio Medrano says, he endured no such cruelty while serving almost 22 months at the prison camp in Oxford, Wis. But if Ryan goes there, he'd better get ready to clean toilets.
"At the very beginning, everyone has latrine duty," Ambrosio said.
Oxford features dormitory-style rooms with no cell bars inside or barbed wire outside. But stripped of all personal possessions and with almost eight hours mandatory labor a day, it's still prison.
"There are guards there," Medrano said. "You have a routine you have to follow. You're told what to do, when to do it and how to do it."
Ryan has petitioned the bureau of prisons to change his assignment to Oxford, Wis., which is hundreds of miles closer for his family than Duluth.
Ryan was sentenced to 6 1/2, but Walker says he hopes Ryan doesn't have to serve more than a year. He says, the 73-year-old Ryan has already suffered enough.
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