CHICAGO (WLS) — Former Illinois Governor George Ryan has died at the age of 91, former Illinois House Republican leader Jim Durkin said Friday.

The Republican served as governor from 1999 to 2003.

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His most high-profile act as governor was to place a moratorium on the death penalty in Illinois.

However, he also had legal trouble. He was convicted on federal corruption charges, spending more than five years in federal prison.

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Durkin said Ryan had recently been moved into hospice care.

The embattled former Illinois Republican governor grew up in Kankakee, where he worked in the family pharmacy before beginning a 40-year career serving in state government.

Ryan rose from speaker of the Illinois House, winning a statewide election as lieutenant governor, secretary of state, and then serving just one term as Illinois’ governor from 1999 to 2003.

He made international headlines halting the state’s death penalty, but that was overshadowed by his conviction on federal corruption.

When Ryan was Illinois Secretary of State in 1994, a truck driver who illegally obtained his commercial license, killed six children in a blazing crash.

Four years later, Ryan was running for governor when the ABC7 I-Team revealed that the driver of the truck had bought the license through a scandal of selling commercial drivers licenses in exchange for bribes to employees of the Illinois Secretary of State’s office.

“Was I involved in selling drivers’ licenses to people illegally? Hell no I wasn’t. Would I have tolerated it? Hell no,” Ryan said on January 30, 2013.

Ryan was convicted in 2006 with 18 counts of federal corruption. He spent more than five years in prison and mostly kept a low profile after being released.

Ryan’s wife Lura Lynn passed away while he was in prison. He was released in 2013.

During his many years in state government he was well liked on both sides of the aisle and was seen as a politician who could get his agenda passed.

In 1999, he became the first American governor to travel to communist Cuba.

Then, in 2000, he made history again declaring a moratorium on imposing the death penalty in Illinois. For most of his political career, he had strongly supported the death penalty.

“I thought I did in fact deter crime, but I found out that wasn’t true,” Ryan said.

It wasn’t until he was elected governor did he begin to have second thoughts.

“My concern basically was if I had left office and didn’t do anything about it, and woke up one morning and found some innocent person had died, I would have to live with that the rest of my life,” Ryan said. “I’m glad I did what I did, it cost me a few friends but that is the way it is.”

Ryan’s halting of the death penalty earned him considerations for a Noble Peace Prize.