Former Gov. George Ryan’s longshot — and likely last — chance to get out of prison early was denied Monday by an appellate court in Chicago.
Lawyers for Ryan, who is nearing the end of his 6 1/2-year prison sentence for corruption, had argued last month that prosecutors had failed to prove he took bribes.
But in a 16-page ruling issued Monday, the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed,
denying the 78-year-old Republican’s appeal.
The appeals court previously had rejected Ryan’s arguments for overturning his 2006 convictions but was ordered by the U.S. Supreme Court in April to take another look at Ryan’s arguments, saying it should consider whether the instructions given to jurors in Ryan’s 2006 corruption trial were flawed in light of another high court ruling dealing with an arcane legal issue known as honest services fraud.