CHICAGO – Former Gov. George Ryan was convicted of corruption Monday in the scandal that ended his political career in 2003 at the same time he was winning international acclaim for commuting the sentences of everyone on Illinois’ death row.
Ryan, 72, sat stone-faced as the verdict was read, and vowed afterward to appeal.
He was convicted of steering state contracts and leases, including a $25 million IBM computer deal, to political insiders while he was Illinois secretary of state in the 1990s and then governor for one term. In return, he got vacations in Jamaica, Cancun, Mexico, and Palm Springs, Calif., and gifts ranging from a golf bag to $145,000 in loans to his brother’s floundering business.
He could get up to 20 years in prison at sentencing Aug. 4.
Texas: Hot weather spurs blackouts
Witheringly hot temperatures and an electricity shortage forced power utilities around Texas to conduct rolling blackouts for several hours Monday. As temperatures climbed into the upper 90s, and even to triple digits, thousands of Texans found themselves without power. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which runs the state’s electricity grid, said operations were back to normal by Monday evening.
California: Avalanche hits resort
An avalanche struck a Northern California ski resort Monday, but no one was reported trapped or missing, a resort spokeswoman said. The Mammoth Mountain resort is located 195 miles east of San Francisco. Mammoth Mountain has had record snowfall this season, more than 52 feet since October.
D.C.: Two detainees lose appeal
The Supreme Court on Monday turned down a long-shot appeal filed on behalf of two Chinese Muslims being held at Guantanamo Bay while the U.S. government tries to find a country to take them. The U.S. military agrees that Abu Bakker Qassim and A’Del Abdu al-Hakim are not enemy combatants and should be freed after more than four years in custody, but with concerns they would be persecuted back in China, the military doesn’t know where to send them. In other action taken Monday by the Supreme Court, justices refused to stop a California prosecutor’s efforts to obtain confidential counseling records kept by the Catholic Church on two priests under investigation for molesting children, and turned down an appeal from evangelist Jerry Falwell over a Web site with a name similar to his but with opposite views on gays.
Oklahoma: Charges in grisly plot
A grocery store stocker was arraigned in Purcell on Monday on first-degree murder charges in the killing and sexual assault of 10-year-old Jamie Rose Bolin in what authorities said was an elaborate plan to eventually eat her. Kevin Ray Underwood, 26, who pleaded not guilty, is thought to have killed the girl last week.
Ohio: Stepfather guilty in rape
A man accused of impregnating his teenage stepdaughter with a syringe eight years ago was convicted in Akron on Monday of rape. The jury in the retrial of John Goff, 44, found that he forced Shenna Grimm to be inseminated with his sperm when she was 16, at a time when her mother could no longer conceive. Grimm’s son was born in 1999, and about a year later she gave him up for adoption. No sentencing date was set.
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