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CHICAGO (AP) ― A federal judge announced Monday that she has clamped a gag order over former Gov. George Ryan's racketeering and fraud trial, barring prosecutors and defense attorneys as well as defendants and their families from speaking to reporters about the case.

U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer acted as attorneys called to the stand witnesses they said would be the last after five months of trial.

The final witnesses, two women who worked under Ryan in the secretary of state's office eight years ago, were called Monday afternoon, and Pallmeyer prepared to send jurors home while the finishing touches are placed on instructions she will give them before their deliberations.

Pallmeyer said she imposed the gag order after word leaked to the media over the weekend that one juror had been dismissed Thursday night.

Pallmeyer went so far as to say prosecutors could continue to provide reporters with copies of court papers they file but should do so through non-lawyer employees. The U.S. Attorney's office said it would leave court papers for reporters stacked in a reception area.

Gag orders are fairly uncommon in criminal trials, though far from unheard of, attorneys said. They said the most recent one in a Chicago courtroom probably was two weeks ago at the Cook County Circuit Court trial of alleged serial killer Paul Runge.

In confirming that she had dismissed a juror, Pallmeyer said she had acted "for a personal reason not in any way related to the merits of the case."

She denied a published report that the dismissal arose from a personality conflict, saying it was "false, baseless and needlessly disruptive."

Earlier, Pallmeyer yielded to fiery demands from prosecutors to recall to the witness stand U.S. Attorney Edward E. McNally of southern Illinois. The federal lawman's unusual stint on the stand Feb. 16 left prosecutors saying he was not truthful and had a potential conflict of interest the jury should know about.

"We must be able to repair the damage and show that the emperor has no clothes," lead prosecutor Patrick M. Collins said. But after Pallmeyer said McNally could take the stand, both sides quickly agreed on a written stipulation on what McNally would say if he testified and it was read to the jury. Prosecutors settled for that, rather than recalling him as a witness.

Ryan, 72, and businessman Larry Warner, 67, are charged in a 22-count indictment with racketeering, mail fraud and other offenses. The indictment says that as secretary of state for eight years in the 1990s and later as governor, Ryan steered contracts and leases to Warner and other friends and that he was rewarded with free vacations and other gifts.

Ryan and Warner say nothing they did was illegal.

McNally was in private practice in Chicago five years ago and represented Ryan, who already was under investigation as part of the government's eight-year Operation Safe Road.

McNally was present at a February 2001 meeting in a downtown hotel at which FBI agents and prosecutors questioned Ryan. He testified that at the meeting he noticed that FBI case agent Raymond Ruebenson seemed to be taking what were in his view inadequate notes.

He said he called that to the attention of prosecutors but they said nothing and just stared. Prosecutors deny that.

In the stipulation, prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed that if called to the stand McNally would testify that he left the Chicago firm of Altheimer & Gray in November 2001.

He received a $250,000 departure bonus, according to the stipulation. He then went to work for the government. Two years later, Altheimer & Gray folded, and a court-appointed administrator is seeking to collect millions of dollars the former partners in the firm owe to Chicago-based LaSalle Bank. Four of those partners have been sued by the administrator.

Winston & Strawn -- the same law firm that represents Ryan -- also represents the administrator and has sought to collect $140,000 from McNally, the stipulation said. It said McNally failed to tell prosecutors anything about that before they cross examined him.

Prosecutors say that represents a potential conflict.

Earlier, prosecutors had poured white-hot scorn on McNally as they urged Pallmeyer to allow them to bring him to the witness stand. They took special aim at the fact that he had stressed in his testimony that he had gone back to the government in response to the 9/11 attacks.

They noted that his attorneys made the same claim in urging more time for him to negotiate in the bankruptcy case.

"He used his super-patriot self-professed status for his own personal financial benefit," Assistant U.S. Attorney Zachary T. Fardon said.

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