Attributions

It's been said. . .

“The people of Illinois expected more of me, and I let them down. No matter what sentence you put on me, that failure will never leave me.”

Former Governor George Ryan apologizing in court before Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer sentenced him to 6½ years in prison and a fine of $603,000

• • •

"This gives me the least pleasure I've ever experienced.”

U.S. Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, noting that ----

Ryan suffers from diabetes, high cholesterol

and Crohn's disease, and might not survive the prison term she imposed

• • •

“At his core, George Ryan is quintessential Illinois politics: power-oriented, jobs-winning, control kind of politics. There is an excess here, but this is not a bad person corrupting a good system.''

Kent Redfield, a political science professor

at the University of Illinois at Springfield