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Witness: Ryan tipped pal to site fo prison

By Mike Robinson
Associated Press

CHICAGO - George Ryan gave a lobbyist confidential information that the southern Illinois community of Grayville had been chosen as the site for a new maximum security state prison, a witness told the former governor's racketeering and fraud trial Wednesday.

Prosecutors say Ron Swanson parlayed the information Ryan gave him into a $50,000 fee for lobbying for Grayville as the prison site - even though Grayville already had been chosen.

"We've been doing the site selection for the maximum security prison," the witness, former federal prosecutor Matthew Bettenhausen, quoted Ryan as saying in an encounter with Swanson in the governor's office on Feb. 23, 2001. "We're going to locate it in Grayville."

Prosecutors say that Swanson signed up Grayville-area dentist Dr. Clyde Wilson, who campaigned for his community as the prison site, as a client on March 2 and collected $50,000.

Ryan, 71, is charged along with lobbyist friend, Larry Warner, 67, with racketeering and mail fraud. Prosecutors say he steered state leases and contracts to a select group of friends including Warner and Swanson and received gifts and free vacations from them in return.

Ryan and Warner say that nothing they did was illegal.

Swanson, 78, pleaded guilty to lying to a federal grand jury and is awaiting his sentence.

Bettenhausen was a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office for a dozen years and resigned in January 2000 to accept a position as deputy governor for justice and public safety.

He currently is head of homeland security for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Bettenhausen testified that he was present at the Feb. 23 meeting at which Grayville was chosen as the prison site over rival communities Wenona and Hoopeston.

After the decision was made, the participants drifted into Ryan's outer office and Swanson happened to be there, he testified.

Another witness, Ryan's former deputy chief of staff, Kevin Wright, had testified that Swanson was among a group of Ryan friends from his days as a state lawmaker who had "walking around rights" in the governor's office and hung out there.

Bettenhausen testified that when Swanson heard from Ryan about the choice of Grayville as the prison site "his reaction was favorable."

The favorable reaction left Bettenhausen with the impression that Swanson, whom he knew to be a former state senator, had represented the Grayville area in the state Legislature, he said.

Swanson actually had represented Homer Glen in Chicago's south suburbs.

Bettenhausen said he warned Ryan and Swanson that by law the decision to locate the prison in Grayville was supposed to be kept secret and that legislative leaders be told first.

Swanson asked that he be told when the announcement was to be made, he testified.

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