Oct 5, 2006 10:35 am US/Central
Fawell To Be Sentenced By Remote Control
Former Ryan Aide Already Serving Another Sentence
CHICAGO (AP) ―
Former Gov.
George Ryan's longtime right-hand man is due to be sentenced Thursday -- long distance.
Scott Fawell, 45, will remain at the federal correctional center at Yankton, S.D., and tune into his sentencing in Chicago via a video hookup.
Fawell will be able to see and hear everything going on in court and U.S. District Judge Blanche M. Manning will see and hear him as well.
Fawell is already serving a 6 1/2-year sentence for using tax dollars and state employees to run Ryan's campaigns and dismantling the secretary of state's inspector general's office to hide corrupt fundraising practices.
Manning is preparing to sentence him for rigging bids on the contract to supervise the $800 million
McCormick Place exposition center expansion.
The government's slow-paced system for moving prisoners from city to city would take an estimated three weeks to bring Fawell to Chicago.
Fawell, who grumbled loudly about his previous trips to Chicago, didn't want to make a similar journey.
"There has been some public record about Mr. Fawell's travails," lead prosecutor Patrick M. Collins told Manning, who approved the video hookup.
At Ryan's recent racketeering trial, chief defense counsel Dan K. Webb made much of Fawell's suspicion that the government had deliberately shunted him from city to city and prison to prison en route to Chicago. He claimed it may have pressured Fawell into testifying against Ryan.
Prosecutors deny that they did that and say the Bureau of Prisons transportation system, known as "Conair," is simply slow.
In another case, Fawell was convicted or racketeering in March 2003 following a jury trial. He said at the time that he would never testify against Ryan.
But in September 2004, he pleaded guilty in the bid-rigging case, saying he was doing it to get a break for his fiancee who had also become tangled in the web of corruption.
He was the government's leadoff witness against Ryan, who was convicted of racketeering following a six-month trial and sentenced to 6 1/2 years in federal prison himself.
Fawell's deal with the government included not only a deal for his fiancee but possibly a reduction of six months in his own sentence in the racketeering case -- if U.S. District Judge Rebecca R. Pallmeyer approves.
And he could be in line for some other breaks as well, 15 percent off for good behavior and possibly months off for successful completion of Bureau of Prisons programs.
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