A federal jury in the bribery trial of former AT&T Illinois boss Paul La Schiazza, accused of funneling payments to an ally of Michael Madigan to win the speaker’s support for legislation in Springfield, has told the judge overseeing the case they may be deadlocked.
“What happens if we feel we are at a stalemate and feel that it won’t change?” a note sent out by the jury early Thursday said, according to U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman.
Gettleman said he would tell the panel to keep at it.
“But I don’t see keeping them beyond today” before declaring a mistrial, Gettleman told lawyers in court. The judge is leaving town and won’t be back until Tuesday.
When the jury appeared, Gettlemen told them to get back to work, rereading the instruction that their verdict must be unanimous and they should make “every reasonable effort” to keep an open mind and reach a decision.
“I want you to take those words and go back to the jury room and keep working on this,” Gettleman told the panel. “We can get back together this afternoon and determine whether or not you can do that…. I know that it’s a difficult decision, but it’s important that you give it another try.”
The only communication from the jury before that came Wednesday morning, when the panel sent the judge a note reading: “The government indicates that for a bribe there only needs to be ‘intent’ and no exchange. Is this consistent with the law?”
This question seemed to hit at the heart of the case. Gettleman called the jury back out and reread several pages of the jury instructions dealing with the elements of the bribery counts, then urged them to read it again back in the jury room.
The instructions define bribery as a person giving or offering something of value to another person “with the intent to influence or reward an agents of state government in exchange for an official act.”
Gettleman told the lawyers he’s not surprised by the confusion because the issue is complicated.
La Schiazza, 66, was charged in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in October 2022 with conspiracy, federal program bribery and using a facility in interstate commerce to promote unlawful activity. The most serious counts carry up to 20 years in prison if convicted.
The trial, which proceeded far quicker than the original three-week estimate, has offered an advance look at evidence that will be presented at Madigan’s own racketeering trial, which kicks off in less than three weeks.
According to prosecutors, La Schiazza schemed to pay retiring state Rep. Eddie Acevedo, a longtime Madigan acolyte, a total of $22,500 over nine months for doing little or no work for AT&T, even though he ostensibly was supposed to produce a report on the Latino caucuses in Springfield and Chicago’s City Hall.
The arrangement, which was pushed by close Madigan confidant Michael McClain, came as AT&T was looking to pass the COLR bill, which stood to save the company hundreds of millions of dollars, according to trial testimony.
In closing arguments Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sushma Raju said the wheeling and dealing gave Acevedo a payday, La Schiazza a notch in his belt and AT&T the bill they had coveted for decades. But it left one constituency in the lurch.
“It shorted the people of Illinois, who deserved a fair, transparent and honest legislative process,” Raju said. “What we got instead was a legislative process that was tainted by this defendant, who paid for the result he wanted. It was not lobbying … it was a crime and Paul La Schiazza knew it.”
But the defense painted a far different picture, one of common and legal dealings between the corporate and political worlds, where companies routinely seek to curry favor with politicians in order to get them to consider their agenda.
The legislation AT&T wanted passed, known by the acronym COLR, “took years of legitimate, tireless hard work,” and not just by La Schiazza, defense attorney Tinos Diamantatos told the jury in his closing remarks.
“It was a team effort by AT&T to get something done lawfully and appropriately as the law allows them to do,” Diamantatos said. “This was no bribe. … The government failed to meet its burden. It wasn’t even close.”
Echoing arguments in the “ComEd Four” trial last year that featured similar accusations of bribing Madigan, Diamantatos on Tuesday called La Schiazza collateral damage in the government’s zeal to bring down the powerful speaker, and urged jurors to end the “nightmare” La Schiazza has been living since finding himself in the prosecution’s crosshairs.
Madigan, 82, and McClain, 76, are scheduled to go on trial Oct. 8 on racketeering charges alleging Madigan’s vaunted state and political operations were run like a criminal enterprise while utility giants Commonwealth Edison and AT&T Illinois put his cronies on contracts requiring little or no work.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
