A federal jury Wednesday convicted former House Speaker Michael Madigan, once the most powerful person in Illinois politics, of 10 charges including bribery conspiracy — but jurors deadlocked on several other charges in the wide-ranging indictment, including the marquee racketeering conspiracy count.
The panel also deadlocked on all six counts against Madigan co-defendant Michael McClain.
The split verdict does not avert the possibility of a significant sentence for Madigan. Several of the guilty counts carry a maximum of 20 years in prison, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Madigan departed the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse just before noon Wednesday, holding hands with his daughters. He walked out into the falling snow toward his attorneys’ offices followed by a horde of news cameras.
The verdict caps one of the most significant political corruption investigations in Chicago’s sordid history and cements an extraordinary personal fall for Madigan, the longest-serving state legislative leader in the nation’s history who for decades held an iron-tight grip on the House as well as the state Democratic Party.
It came after the panel Wednesday morning announced they had reached a partial decision but were deadlocked on 12 counts. Attorneys for all sides agreed to accept the partial verdict.
The racketeering charge headed a 23-count indictment first filed against Madigan and McClain in 2022.
Jurors could not reach a verdict on that count. They also deadlocked on the sole count related to an alleged bribery scheme related to AT&T Illinois, and could not reach a verdict on any charges regarding an alleged scheme about a parcel of land in Chinatown.
U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey on formally declared a mistrial on the deadlocked counts.
The jury rendered a split verdict for Madigan on other charges. Madigan was ultimately found guilty on 10 counts, including the ComEd-related bribery conspiracy charge, which alleged a multipronged effort to help ComEd pass key legislation in exchange for hiring Madigan’s associates as do-nothing consultants.
He was also convicted on three bribery and Travel Act counts related to funneling payments to those associates, as well as six wire fraud and Travel Act counts regarding a scheme to appoint then-Ald. Daniel Solis to a state board in exchange for Solis’ help steering business to Madigan’s private law firm.
Madigan was acquitted of two counts related to a purported scheme to get onetime political nemesis Juan Ochoa appointed to the ComEd board, and acquitted of all four counts related to an alleged plan to use his public power to get private law firm business from developers of a West Loop high-rise.
The four-month trial was the culmination of a decade-long corruption investigation that has already felled several of Madigan’s associates – but a guilty verdict for Madigan is easily the most significant victory for federal prosecutors.
Madigan, whose vaunted 13th Ward political operation was one of the last vestiges of the old Democratic machine at work, a system that rewarded loyal campaign workers with patronage jobs and focused on constituent services and old-fashioned door-knocking to drum up support.
In Springfield, Madigan wielded an almost mythical power over legislation, developing a cadre of loyal staffers who often continued to support the speaker after moving on to high-powered lobbying or consulting jobs.
Madigan was also known as meticulous and old-school, eschewing cell phones and email for his entire career and consistently keeping his cards close to the vest. During the trial, jurors learned that Madigan often was so silent during negotiations that he’d earned the nickname “the Sphinx.”
It took long-running wiretaps and two undercover FBI moles – one of whom, Daniel Solis, wore a wire while in office as 25th Ward alderman – to fell Madigan.
Madigan, of Chicago’s Southwest Side, and McClain, 77, a retired lobbyist from downstate Quincy, were indicted three years ago on charges alleging they conspired with utility giants ComEd and AT&T Illinois to funnel payments through do-nothing subcontracts to a handful of the speaker’s closest allies.
The charges also alleged Madigan pressured real estate developers into hiring his law firm to do property tax appeals, and conspired with McClain to pass legislation transferring a parcel of state-owned land in Chinatown.
The decision by the eight-woman, four man jury is sure to reverberate in the halls of power, from Chicago to the state capitol where Madigan, one of the last vestiges of the old Democratic machine built by Mayor Richard J. Daley, held sway for five decades, including nearly 40 years as speaker.
The evidence
The jury heard from more than 60 witnesses over the course of the trial, which covered nearly a decades’ worth of evidence about an array of purported schemes.
The first phase of trial largely mirrored the evidence in the “ComEd Four” trial. Jurors heard a slew of wiretapped phone calls and watched a series of undercover videos in which ComEd executives scrambled to appease Madigan by hiring his recommended candidates for everything from internships to a seat on the board.
The bulk of the ComEd allegations, however, centered on a cadre of Madigan allies who were paid a total of $1.3 million from 2011 through 2019 through allegedly do-nothing consulting contracts. Among the recipients were two former aldermen, Frank Olivo and Michael Zalewski, precinct captains Ray Nice and Edward Moody, and former state Rep. Edward Acevedo.
Madigan’s attorneys argued he didn’t know his associates weren’t doing any work and was personally angered when he found out.
In his closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu scoffed at idea that Madigan was unaware of the scheme and that the payments were simply “favors.”
“If you’re thinking of a bribe, you could not find an envelope big enough to contain all that money,” Bhachu said. “It is a gigantic amount of money.”
The evidence then turned to several counts that hinged on the testimony of Daniel Solis, the 25th Ward alderman-turned-FBI mole who secretly recorded Madigan trying to win business for his private law firm.
Solis, prosecutors’ most memorable witness, got an unprecedented cooperation deal that will likely leave the former Zoning Committee chairman without a criminal conviction for his various misdeeds – and keep him eligible to receive his lucrative city pension.
But Solis’ testimony also brought his checkered past to the forefront: including shady dealings with campaign contributors, an affair with his Chinese translator, even an episode that found him in a Shanghai hotel room with a briefcase full of cash.
In his closing argument, Madigan attorney Daniel Collins told the jury it all amounted to one truth: “You cannot trust Danny Solis.”
“Cannot trust him,” Collins said. “He’s got his own agenda, and he’s as sly as a fox.”
Prosecutors wrapped up their case with evidence regarding AT&T Illinois, including controversial testimony from ex-Rep. Edward Acevedo, who the telecom company allegedly hired for a do-nothing job as a bribe to Madigan.
But perhaps no evidence was more memorable – or more surprising – than the ex-speaker’s decision to take the stand on his own behalf. The veteran politician was often tight-lipped and cryptic toward reporters during his time in Springfield. But he put on a warm and personable show for jurors, befitting the defense’s argument that Madigan was simply a hardworking public servant who loved to help constituents.
On the stand, he flatly denied knowledge of any schemes that the evidence could not explicitly tie him to – and he gave innocuous explanations for the evidence that did.
The choice to take the stand was risky, however, and opened the door for prosecutors to introduce evidence that until then had been barred. Most prominently, the now-infamous “bandits” tape, on which Madigan is heard chuckling about how some ComEd subcontractors “made out like bandits” for little to no work.
Collins said in his closing remarks that in their blind pursuit of a powerful politician, prosecutors saw only the Madigan “myth,” not the man with a blue-collar upbringing and reputation for consensus-building.
In arguments that frequently ridiculed the government’s case as weak and illogical, Cotter emphasized that there is a hard line between lobbying and bribery. Bribery requires a clear intent and agreement to exchange something for official action, Cotter said.
“A bribe involves an exchange, a ‘this for that.’ Lobbying does not. Lobbying does not. Lobbying is about hope. It’s a profession about hope, no guarantees, no exchanges,” Cotter said. “Building trust and credibility … is not a bribe.”
Prosecutors, meanwhile, returned to what they told the jury at the beginning: that the trial was about corruption at the highest levels of state government, where Madigan and McClain schemed to leverage the speaker’s power for profit, both for himself and his associates.
Bhachu ended his rebuttal by showing the jury a handwritten note McClain wrote to Madigan in 2016, telling the speaker that Illinois was a better place because he had his “hand on the rudder.”
“And that was true — Mr. Madigan did have his hand on the rudder of the state,” Bhachu said. “He also had something else in his hand. He had the trust that was placed in him by each and every member of the public. Mr. Madigan abused that trust. He lost his way. He was blinded by profit, by power, by his desire to stay in power.”
The political fallout
The political repercussions of the federal investigation already had cost Madigan the speakership even before he was indicted, and his successor, Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, is well ensconced at the beginning of his third, two-year term as speaker.
Now that there is a verdict, the next major question is whether the outcome of the trial will provide any impetus for change in Springfield, where Democrats control the House, Senate and governor’s office.
They’ve dabbled in small-bore reforms under Gov. JB Pritzker since the federal investigation broke open. Despite looking for ways to polish his resume for a potential presidential run, Pritzker has yet to embrace an across-the-board overhaul of the free-wheeling political atmosphere that makes Illinois a national laughingstock.
Regardless of the ultimate verdict, jurors in the Madigan trial saw irrevocable proof of Springfield’s messy overlap of money, special interests, power politics and extraordinarily cozy relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists.
Toppling Madigan from his throne showed the power of federal prosecutors to damage the career of a singular political figure, but a verdict alone ignores the question of whether Pritzker and the Democrats who rule Illinois will take on the less-than-stellar system that consistently puts Illinois public officials in front of a judge.
The Madigan trial has amplified the findings of the Tribune’s “Culture of Corruption” series last year that documented how weak laws on campaign finance, ballot access, lobbying, ethics and oversight, and the byzantine structure of local government have all but encouraged politicians to stretch–and sometimes cross–the lines between what is legal and illegal.
Four of the state’s last 11 governors and nearly 40 Chicago aldermen in the last half century have served time in prison. State lawmakers and local officials from around Illinois also have worn out the paths to prison cells over the decades.
Even now, state Sen. Emil Jones III, the Chicago Democrat whose father once served as Illinois Senate president, has a federal corruption case still pending in Chicago. He has pleaded not guilty.
The last major push in Illinois for reform came 16 years ago after the legislature impeached and removed Gov. Rod Blagojevich. His successor, fellow Democrat Pat Quinn, created the Illinois Reform Commission, which made progress in Springfield but in the end did little to enact the sweeping changes that advocates wanted.
Madigan downfall
Madigan held the speakership for all but two years from 1983 until 2021, only getting knocked off the throne during the 1994 nationwide Republican tide that swept Rep. Lee Daniels of Elmhurst into the top spot in the Illinois House and Newt Gingrich into the U.S. House speakership.
Along with ruling the House, Madigan chaired the Illinois Democratic Party from 1998 until 2021, resigning both his House seat and the party post after he lost the speakership.
Madigan’s hold on the House Democratic caucus started loosening in the wake of a series of explosive sexual harassment cases involving misbehaving aides in 2018, including longtime chief of staff Tim Mapes.
But the momentum picked up speed in July 2020 when the U.S. attorney’s office reached a deferred prosecution agreement with ComEd, which acknowledged trying to influence Madigan by showering his pals and associates with do-nothing contracts, legal work and a seat on the ComEd board of directors.
While ComEd agreed to pay a $200 million fine, the biggest political marker in the agreement was that Madigan was referenced clearly when the court document called the speaker of the House “Public Official A.”
Madigan became a flashpoint in the 2020 elections as his political baggage was widely blamed for the defeat of a Democrat on the Illinois Supreme Court and Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker’s signature proposal to increase the income tax on people with the biggest paychecks.
Only weeks after the election, McClain and three others were indicted in the separate ComEd Four case.
The cascading events caused 19 House Democrats, mostly women, to refuse to support Madigan for another term as speaker, ending his record-setting run and putting in place current Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside.
