A former internal lobbyist for AT&T Illinois is scheduled to testify Thursday about an alleged arrangement to secretly pay thousands of dollars to an ally of House Speaker Michael Madigan for a do-nothing contract to win the powerful speaker’s support for the company’s legislative goals.
Stephen Selcke, who served in state positions in both Republican and Democratic administrations before becoming an AT&T lobbyist, was granted immunity from federal prosecutors in exchange for testimony against his former boss, Paul La Schiazza.
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. He has pleaded not guilty and been free on bond while his case is pending.
The trial, which is expected to last up to four weeks, is offering a sneak peek at some of the evidence that will be presented at the racketeering trial of Madigan and his longtime confidant, Michael McClain, which kicks off next month.
Prosecutors told the jury in opening statements Wednesday that La Schiazza and other AT&T officials had tried for years to win Madigan’s support for a bill that would end mandated landline service, saving the company millions of dollars, but it wasn’t until the company’s president agreed to give $22,500 in payments to former state Rep. Edward Acevedo that the deal was done.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a case about a corporate executive paying off the most powerful politician in Illinois to help pass his company’s prized piece of legislation,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Mower said in his opening remarks to the jury.
La Schiazza’s attorney, however, told the jury in his opening remarks his client is an innocent man who has found himself “in the middle of a nightmare” after retiring from a successful career in corporate government relations.
“He fell into the crosshairs of the government’s investigation of Mike Madigan … publicly accused of being a criminal for simply doing his job,” attorney Jack Dodds said. He said the government’s narrative about the alleged bribe is vastly oversimplified, and that “the whole story will out the lie in that narrative.”
Dodds told the jury La Schiazza’s job was literally to build relationships and goodwill with legislators, because in the business of lobbying and government relations, “good relationships and goodwill equals access.”
“Paul and his team took the request to consider a small contract for Eddie Acevedo seriously because they wanted to be responsive, they wanted to have a good relationship with Madigan while doing the work of trying to convince him to support (landline) legislation,” Dodds said
Dodds also told the jury they will not see any proof that La Schiazza thought that he was hiring Acevedo “in exchange” for Madigan advancing AT&T’s bill, and certainly no proof that La Schiazza “understood he was doing something wrong … that he was doing something other than his job.”
The trial is the latest chapter in the blockbuster federal investigation of Madigan and his once-vaunted 13th Ward political operation, a probe that helped put an end to Madigan’s record run as both the leader of the House and the state Democratic Party.
Madigan, 82, was the longest serving leader of any legislative chamber in the nation who held an ironclad grip on the state legislature as well as the Democratic Party and its political spoils. He was dethroned as speaker in early 2021 as the investigation swirled around him, and soon after resigned the House seat he’d held since 1971.
Madigan and McClain were charged in March 2022 in the original 22-count indictment alleging they conspired to participate in an array of bribery and extortion schemes from 2011 to 2019 that allegedly leveraged Madigan’s elected office and political power for personal gain.
Both have pleaded not guilty, and their trial is set to kick off on Oct. 8.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com