Chicago Tribune names two dismissed Ryan jurors

The one media outlet that has been kicking butt in covering the trial of former Ill. Governor George Ryan, particularly the disastrous jury deliberations, is the Chicago Tribune.

Today the Tribune (free registration may be required) named the two dismissed jurors. Robert Pavlick of Buffalo Grove is the man who presumably lied about his driving-under-the-influence conviction and other behind-the-wheel transgressions during the time when Ryan was in charge of the office that oversees driving-related concerns.

The other dismissed juror, Chicagoan Evelyn Ezel, apparently was charged but never convicted on drug and other charges.

Both jurors checked off "no" on their juror questionnaire in September:

Have you, or has any close friend of relative ever been charged with or accused of a crime?

In a separate article, the Tribune explained to its readers how the uncovered the information on the two jurors. Routinely in high-profile trials, reporters will retrieve background information on jurors and use that information to "flesh out" the jurors as the reporters note the motivations of the panel members who reached a verdict.

And the reporters discovered the two bombshells. They forwarded their findings to a top federal judge in Chicago.

Friend-of-the-blog Eric Zorn has the story-behind-the story.

The Daily Herald has a long profile on Pavlick. He works for Home Depot, and does a lot of volunteer work. The mayor of Palatine, Illinois called Pavlick "the nicest guy on earth" a while back.

But the Daily Herald also reports on a previously undisclosed incident from his troubled past:

Pavlick’s most recent brush — on July 24, 1996 — was on a much different matter.

Apparently distraught by the death of a relative, he was holed up with a weapon at his Buffalo Grove home, 94 W. Forest Place. Buffalo Grove police and local SWAT teams cordoned off a two-block radius around his home and negotiated with him for three hours until he surrendered and was taken to Northwest Community Hospital for an evaluation.

Police confiscated two 12-gauge shotguns from his home. He pleaded guilty to reckless conduct and having no firearm owner’s card and was sentenced to one year of conditional discharge, a type of light probation.