A former top official under Secretary of State George Ryan testified Wednesday that Ryan’s co-defendant, Lawrence Warner, asked him to hold up on any computer projects because Warner was working on a deal with IBM.
Frank Cavallaro, who directed the office’s computer department, said he agreed to the delay because “Mr. Warner was a good friend of Secretary Ryan’s.”
On cross-examination, Cavallaro acknowledged that he didn’t know what project he stalled at Warner’s request but that it wasn’t a critical upgrade of the office’s mainframe computer system. He also didn’t know how long the delay lasted before Warner called and said to go forward on the project.
Prosecutors charge that IBM hired Warner as a lobbyist in 1993 because of his close friendship with Ryan. They also allege that Warner reaped about $1 million from IBM as its revenues from sales to the secretary of state’s office rose sharply over the next five years.
Cavallaro said he was hired by Ryan in early 1992 after he told Warner and Donald Udstuen, another close Ryan adviser, that he supported switching from the office’s Honeywell-Bull mainframe to a new IBM system.
Prosecutors have also alleged that Warner passed on to Udstuen about $250,000 of his payments from IBM.
Testifying under a grant of immunity from prosecution, Cavallaro said he wasn’t aware that Warner received a percentage of the IBM contract or that Udstuen profited from the deal as well.
Cavallaro testified that the Honeywell-Bull mainframe was in desperate need of replacement and that IBM had a superior product.
The switch didn’t take place, though, until 1995 because of budgetary reasons, Cavallaro said.
Cavallaro also testified that Ryan once asked him why the secretary of state’s office didn’t do more business with Unisys, a computer company that had retained Ryan’s friend, Al Ronan, as its lobbyist and had employed Ronan’s wife, Cathy Adduci.
Ryan didn’t mention either Ronan or Adduci in the brief conversation, Cavallaro said.
According to earlier testimony in the trial, Ryan and his former chief of staff, Scott Fawell, sought to award a contract to both Unisys and a second company, Viisage Technology, to create digital driver’s licenses.
The arrangement was intended to benefit Ronan and Warner, who represented Viisage, Fawell said, but Viisage alone won the lucrative contract.
Adduci could be called to testify by the government at the trial as soon as Thursday.
In other testimony Wednesday, Craig Pierce, the longtime chairman of the McDonough County Republican Party, testified that he handed Ryan a personal check for $500 at a political rally in 1996.
Ryan is charged with using money from political supporters for personal expenses, omitting the payments from campaign disclosure reports and failing to declare the income on his tax returns.
Pierce testified he made the check out to Ryan personally in gratitude for Ryan’s appearance at a rally for a state legislator in the tiny Downstate town of Bushnell.
“You didn’t care if he took his wife out to dinner with it? You didn’t care if he bought a new set of golf clubs with it? You didn’t care what he did with that money?” asked Timothy Rooney, one of Ryan’s lawyers.
“I did not care what he did with that check,” Pierce said. “No! I don’t [care] now either! I want to go home,” said Pierce, drawing laughs from the gallery and jury.
Prosecutors also presented testimony intended to show that Warner evaded cash-reporting requirements when he cashed two checks totaling $14,000 on successive days in 1997.
Attorney George Karcazes testified that he and Warner were on the board of North Community Bank when federal rules were discussed that any withdrawal of more than $10,000 in cash must be reported to the government.
———-
rrbush@tribune.com
mo’connor@tribune.com
