Former House Speaker Michael Madigan’s longtime chief of staff is now a federal inmate, the highest-ranking associate of America’s longest-serving speaker to go to prison — so far.
Tim Mapes, 69, Madigan’s fierce gatekeeper for decades, reported Tuesday to a medium-security federal prison in Pensacola, Florida, to begin serving his 30-month sentence for perjury, according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.
Under federal rules, Mapes must serve 85% of his sentence, meaning with good behavior, he can expect to be released sometime in July 2026. An official release date will be set later by the prisons bureau.
It’s the latest stop on a downward slide for a man who served for years as Madigan’s chief of staff, House clerk and executive director of the Madigan-run Illinois Democratic Party. The penitentiary is also a huge comedown for a guy who used to march throughout House and bark orders to lawmakers at will—all with Madigan’s imprimatur.
Records show Mapes has at least one familiar face behind bars. The same Pensacola prison currently houses former state Rep. Luis Arroyo, a Chicago Democrat convicted in in unrelated bribery scheme involving sweepstakes gaming legislation. Arroyo was sentenced to 57 months last year and is due to be released in December 2025.
Mapes was convicted by a jury in August of perjury and attempted obstruction of justice charges alleging he lied to a grand jury in 2021 in a failed attempt to protect Madigan from a widening political corruption investigation.
When he went in for his interview, Mapes had been immunized by the U.S. attorney’s office, meaning he could not be prosecuted for what he said as long as it was the truth.
In its decision, the jury found Mapes had lied on every occasion alleged by prosecutors in the indictment, which consisted mostly of a series of “I don’t recall” answers to questions about “assignments” Madigan handed down to his longtime confidant, Michael McClain.
In May 2023, McClain was found guilty along with three others in a bribery conspiracy to funnel payments from Commonwealth Edison to Madigan associates in hopes of gaining the speaker’s influence over the utility’s legislative agenda in Springfield.
Madigan lost the speakership and resigned his House seat in 2021, a year before being indicted along with McClain in a separate racketeering case alleging Madigan ran a criminal enterprise that used his power of elected office to shake down ComEd and AT&T and a real estate developer in Chinatown.
The trial for Madigan and McClain was supposed to start in April but was delayed six months after the U.S. Supreme Court decided to review an Indiana case involving the same federal bribery statute.
rlong@chicagotribune.com
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
