Apr 17, 2006 6:09 pm US/Central
Jurors: No 'Smoking Gun' In Ryan Trial Evidence
Foreperson Said Jury Worked As A Team
by Dorothy Tucker
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
Some jurors on the federal panel that convicted former Governor George Ryan Monday say they didn't see any "smoking gun" during the five months of testimony.
Instead, they said they carefully sifted through volumes of evidence that included tax issues and campaign money before finding the 72-year-old Ryan guilty on all 22 counts of racketeering, fraud and other charges.
CBS 2 Dorothy Tucker reports the jury foreperson and several others spoke about the teamwork that went into their deliberations.
Nine of the 12 men and women who decided beyond a reasonable doubt that George Ryan is guilty spoke Monday.
Jurors said they had numerous arguments over the meaning of the evidence but that it wasn't all that difficult to reach a verdict. They said Ryan had no partisans in the jury room.
"We took our time. We deliberated. We looked at the evidence," said jury foreperson Sonja Chambers. "We looked at both sides, and we came up with a verdict."
"I would say we looked at all the witnesses and took great notes. This is a great matter. We took it seriously," said juror Denise Peterson.
Juror Jill DiMartino says the panel followed the judge's orders to begin deliberations anew after two of their colleagues were dismissed after eight days of deliberations.
She was one of the two alternates brought in after the dismissals of two original jurors who were dropped were found to have omitted mention of their arrest records on questionnaires that the jury filled out last September.
It was a verdict of guilty on all counts after jurors spent more than five months listening to the testimony of 77 witnesses. But the one person they would have liked to have heard from, George Ryan, never took the stand.
"I guess everybody would have, I'm sure you would have. But did it have an impact? No. It was the evidence," said juror Kevin Rein of suburban Glen Ellyn, a self-employed carpenter.
Jurors say the evidence was overwhelming against the man who once ran the secretary of state's office. They said there was no smoking gun, but the prosecution's key witness, Ryan's former chief of staff Scott Fawell, was a key factor.
"It hurt. He was there to put people in certain places and certain times, even though he didn't point out a specific crime," said Rein said.
Jurors say testimony that Ryan carried lots of cash also hurt him and the defense's explanation that Ryan's family paid for all their trips to Jamaica didn't make sense.
In the end, after 10 days of deliberations, jurors agreed with the prosecution.
"I think hiding taxes, diverting some of campaign funds to his family members, stopping investigations with the IG department. There's a whole lot of stuff out there. You could pretty much take your pick," said juror James Cwick, 22, of Glen Ellyn, a supervisor at a shipping company loading dock.
None of the jurors said they were disillusioned with Illinois politics, despite a far-reaching tapestry of corruption that emerged from the testimony concerning Ryan.
"I think he's just one bad egg in the whole basket," Cwick said. "There are many people who are doing a great job out there."
As for co-defendant Larry Warner, jurors didn't buy his defense that he was a legitimate businessman taking money on legitimate deals with the state.
One juror said that when it came to Warner, he simply had "too much power" and jurors were convinced Warner abused that power.
The foreperson called the jury "a great team." Rein says there was some friction in the jury room. But he says the reconstituted jury generally worked together to reach consensus during ten days of deliberations.
It was a team that consisted of six men, six women, nine whites and three blacks. Most of the jurors live in the suburbs, and only a handful live in the city. The youngest is 22, the oldest is 65.
They have all kind of jobs, from a bartender to a postal worker to a retired telephone technician.
(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
