Anthony De Santis, a prominent dinner-theater owner who fancied low-digit license plates, testified that he was at a 1997 political fundraiser when he told George Ryan he wanted to contribute $2,000 to his campaign for governor.
But De Santis said he didn’t want his contribution to be publicly disclosed out of concern it might disappoint the political sensibilities of his customers.
Testifying Thursday at Ryan’s corruption trial, De Santis, 91, said Ryan, then secretary of state, had a ready solution.
“He said, `The only way you can do that is if you can write four checks out, one to me, one to my wife, one to my son and one to my daughter-in-law, for $500 each,'” De Santis said.
De Santis’ testimony marked the first time in the trial the jury heard from someone who gave Ryan money.
De Santis said he mailed four $500 checks to Ryan at his Kankakee home the next month.
Prosecutors have alleged that Ryan didn’t declare the money as income on his 1997 tax return. Ryan also failed to disclose it as a gift as required under state law until he learned the government had discovered the payments, prosecutors have contended.
Ryan and co-defendant Lawrence Warner are on trial for using Ryan’s office to enrich themselves. Among the charges against Ryan are income tax fraud and abuse of public trust.
De Santis also testified that he sent two $500 checks to Ryan in December 1998, shortly before he received low-digit license plate 217 from the secretary of state’s office.
But De Santis, who obtained hundreds of the coveted plates over five decades for employees and relatives, characterized the money to Ryan as a Christmas gift and denied that there was any connection to plate 217.
De Santis, a high-profile owner of the Drury Lane dinner theater in Oakbrook Terrace, appeared a bit slowed by age, but his voice was clear as he testified. Calm and collected on the witness stand, he became fiery only once, when he misunderstood a question as attacking his honesty.
`Documented everything’
Noting he does business by check, De Santis said, “When you’re honest, you write everything down and document it. When you’re dishonest, you give cash. That’s the difference between me and most businessmen.”
De Santis said that at the fundraiser, which was aboard the Blue Moon boat at Navy Pier, Ryan must have written down the names of his wife, son and daughter-in-law for him to know to whom to address the checks.
After some confusion over the nature of their relationship, De Santis said Ryan wasn’t a personal friend, but he was grateful to Ryan because his office had sent him several low-digit license plates. De Santis said he had sent a $100 check to one Ryan staffer who was his contact for the plates, but she refused to accept the money and returned the check.
De Santis said the low-digit plates “had a lot of value to me.” He said he believed the plates safeguarded his two daughters and five grandchildren from criminals who would be fearful of threatening someone presumably important.
De Santis said he had obtained hundreds of the plates for employees, friends and relatives since the 1950s, when Charles Carpentier was secretary of state. He testified he gave one $500 check to Ryan in December 1997 and two $500 checks in December 1998 as Christmas gifts.
Several weeks after the 1998 checks, De Santis obtained the “217” license plate from Ryan’s office. But he denied any connection between the two.
“The reason I sent those checks is he was so good to me in giving me those license plates,” De Santis told Assistant U.S. Atty. Laurie Barsella. “It was Christmastime, and I thought the least I could do was thank him and his wife by sending them checks.”
At the start of his cross-examination, Bradley Lerman, one of Ryan’s lawyers, asked De Santis a series of questions about whether Ryan ever solicited a bribe, cash or a campaign contribution in return for low-digit license plates. De Santis was emphatic in his denials.
Lerman also tried to show that Ryan wasn’t De Santis’ only contact in the secretary of state’s office. De Santis said he provided gifts at least twice to the director of business services, Phil Collins, who wrote De Santis a thank-you note on secretary of state letterhead.
“I value your friendship and feel very much in your debt,” Collins wrote in December 1992.
De Santis also denied ever bribing any secretary of state over the decades to obtain the coveted plates.
The defense also showed that before 1997, De Santis hadn’t apparently feared any fallout from customers by being publicly disclosed as a political contributor. He had made public contributions to a number of Republican candidates, including Ryan, records indicated.
Ex-prodigy testifies
Also testifying Thursday was Richard Juliano, once the prodigy of Ryan’s political operation, who told jurors he was paid tens of thousands of dollars by the state while performing political work, often from an office near Ryan’s. Juliano, who is cooperating with prosecutors, pleaded guilty in 2002 to diverting state resources and employees to campaigns.
Juliano, who has yet to be sentenced for his wrongdoing, recounted a long history of working on political campaigns while on the state payroll.
He recalled how one out-of-state media consultant in Ryan’s initial run for secretary of state in 1990 expressed surprise to Scott Fawell, the campaign manager, how intermingled government and politics were in the campaign. Juliano said Fawell told him that he replied: “This is Illinois. Things are done differently here.”
Juliano described Fawell as his one-time political mentor, but it is clear the friendship soured after Juliano testified against Fawell at his trial in 2003.
Juliano also testified that in 1995 Ryan personally suggested charging consulting fees to Texas Sen. Phil Gramm’s presidential campaign “so some people can make money.”
Prosecutors allege that Ryan, who endorsed Gramm and served as his state campaign chairman, secretly collected thousands of dollars from the campaign without ever disclosing it to Gramm and passed the money to four of his daughters.
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mo’connor@tribune.com
rrbush@tribune.com
