SPRINGFIELD – Former Gov. George Ryan will get no state pension the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in an opinion released this morning, a decision that strips him of a nearly $70,000 annual state retirement a lower court had said was unrelated to his corruption conviction.
Following Ryan’s federal conviction, for which he’s now serving a prison term, a state pension board stripped Ryan of any pension benefits but an appeals court overturned part of that decision and said Ryan is entitled to a pension for the years not tied to his conviction.
The state appealed and the moved to the Illinois Supreme Court justices, who issued their opinion today.
Former Gov. Jim Thompson, Ryan’s attorney, argued that each time someone is elected to office, it’s a new membership in the pension system. Therefore Ryan’s early years of service are still valid grounds for granting a pension, which would now amount to roughly $5,700 a month, $68,400 annually. Had he not run afoul of the law, Ryan, who is 75, would now be collecting nearly $197,000 annually.
Thompson said Ryan’s been stripped of his reputation, his pension and will sit in prison until the age of 80 while his aging wife sits at home in Kankakee with no income.
But Jan Hughes, an attorney representing the pension system, countered that Ryan betrayed the public at large regardless of what specific office he held and should be held accountable. She argued that the pension laws refer to when a “member” has committed felonies and should not be divided down to which office which member held when.
She noted that the contributions to that pension system do not come from the General Assembly budget or the lieutenant governor’s budget. They come from the state and as such, Ryan’s entire service is at issue, not a segment of it.
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