George Ryan dies; The governor of ex-illinois stopped the executions, went to prison

By Christopher Wills and John O'Connor | Associated Press

Springfield, Ill. – Former Illinois Gouvene George Ryan, who was accompanied by a corruption scandal who landed in prison and who was announced by some of the state's death department. He was 91.

The forensic doctor of Kankakee County, Robert Gessner, a friend of the family, said Ryan died in his house in Kankake on Friday afternoon, where he received hospice care.

Ryan started a small city pharmacist, but had one of the country's largest states lead. On the way, the republican of crime experienced a conversion of the death penalty in crime and praised internationally by hiring the executions as a governor and finally emptied the death cell.

From 1999 to 2003 he only served as a governor who was accused of using government offices to reward friends, gain elections and hide corruption that played a role in the fiery death of six children. Finally, Ryan was convicted of accusations of corruption and sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison.

During his more than five years behind bars, Ryan worked as a carpenter and friends with other inmates, many of whom asked him as a “governor”. It looked thinner and more cautious in January 2013, weeks before his 79th birthday.

He had defiant prison. The night before he went in, Ryan insisted that he was innocent and would prove it. But when Ryan President George W. Bush asked him to grant him in 2008, he said that he accepted the verdict against him and felt “deep shame”.

“I apologize to the people in Illinois for my behavior,” said Ryan at the time.

Ryan still served his prison sentence when his wife Lura Lynn died in June 2011. He was released briefly to be on her deathbed, but was not allowed to take part in her funeral. On the day he left the prison and returned to the Kankakee house, where he and his wife raised their children, one of his grandchildren was enough for him an urn with his wife's ash.

Ryan was born in Iowa and grew up in Kankakee. He married his high school treasure, followed by his father to become a pharmacist and get six children. Those who knew Ryan described him as the ultimate father of the family and the neighbors of a neighbor, someone who used local children to use their basketball court or hurried to Dairy Queen to buy treats when they missed the ice car.

“He even offered to deliver the papers,” said Ben Angelo, newspaper boy Ben Angelo when Ryan ran for the governor. “He was serious.”

In 1968 Ryan was appointed to fill a non -expired term in the County Board and began a quick increase in politics. Finally he served as spokesman for the Illinois House, lieutenant governor, foreign minister and finally governor.

Ryan, a happy politician from the old school, emphasized pragmatism about ideology. He worked with officials from both parties and completed offers on the golf course or on cigars and alcohol.

Ryan helped to block the change in equality in the early 1980s during his term as spokesman for the Illinois house and triggered some of the most heated demonstrations that were ever seen in Capitol.

“You wrote my name in blood in front of the house in front of the governor's office,” said Ryan. “They were honestly trying hectic times.”

His willingness to put the party's orthodoxy aside sometimes had it contradicted with more conservative republicans.

In 1989 he led a failed effort to get the general assembly to limit storm weapons. He supported the expansion of gambling. He was the first governor to visit Cuba since Fidel Castro took over. And in 2000 he decided not to do it anymore. He imposed a moratorium for executions and began to check reforms in a judicial system that repeatedly condemned innocent men to die.

Ultimately, Ryan decided that no reforms would offer the certainty he wanted. In practically his last act as a governor, in 2003 he emptied the death cell with pardons and commutations.

“Because the Illinois -to -death penalty system arbitrarily and moody – and therefore immoral – I will no longer tinker with the machines of death,” said Ryan.

Ryan was mentioned as a candidate at the Nobel Peace Prize when the federal prosecutor's office before the end of the year the payments, gifts and holidays in return for tax contracts and lease contracts on cronies, which investigators and fraud was on his taxes.

A large part of the illegal activities took place in Ryan's two office hours as Foreign Minister Illinois, including the death of six children from 1994. They burned to death after their minivan had hit a part of a truck whose driver received his license illegally from Ryan's office.