CHICAGO, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan has lost a bid to get a federal judge to toss out racketeering and mail fraud charges filed against him in December.
U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer told lawyers for the one-term Republican governor and his co-defendant and long-time friend Larry Warner, to consider appealing parts of her decision, the Chicago Sun-Times said Thursday.
Pallmeyer denied their request to quash the federal indictments Wednesday in a 55-page opinion.
Ryan, 70, faces up to nine years in prison if convicted on the charges.
He is accused to accepting cash bribes, loans and trips in a long-running pattern of corruption while Illinois secretary of state and governor.
Ryan was nominated for the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize for freeing 164 prisoners on Illinois' Death Row in January 2003 after 13 condemned prisoners were later exonerated.
