A federal jury has resumed deliberations Wednesday in the bribery trial of former AT&T Illinois boss Paul La Schiazza, who is accused of funneling payments to an ally of Michael Madigan to win the powerful speaker’s support for key legislation in Springfield.
The jury of four men and eight women returned to the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse at 9 a.m. for more discussions after deliberating for about an hour and a half Tuesday without reaching a verdict.
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.
“The bottom line, ladies and gentlemen, is that this case is riddled with unanswered questions on the key important points,” Diamantatos said. “Paul is 100% innocent of these crimes. He was doing his job. He never offered anything to Mr. Madigan in exchange for an official action.”
Making a hire like Acevedo is what lobbyists do, Diamantatos explained. If the fix was in, there would be no further effort to pass COLR.
“We bribed a king. This should sail right through!” Diamantatos said in a mocking tone, referring to an email seen by the jury where La Schiazza referred to the speaker as “King Madigan.”
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
