An FBI wiretap played at Tim Mapes’ perjury trial last year captured the longtime aide to House Speaker Michael Madigan asking a colleague if he was going to put on his “big boy pants” before carrying out a politically thorny Madigan order.
On Monday, it will be Mapes’ turn to put on the big boy pants.
Mapes, who served for years as Madigan’s abrasive and sharp-tongued chief of staff, executive director of the Madigan-run Democratic Party of Illinois, and clerk of the House, is scheduled to be sentenced for lying to a federal grand jury investigating his former boss.
Prosecutors are asking for up to about five years in prison for Mapes, arguing in a recent court filing that Mapes’ lies “were calculated to thwart the government’s sprawling investigation of a series of unlawful schemes calculated to corrupt the government of this state at the highest levels.”
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Diane MacArthur and Julia Schwartz wrote in their filing that when a seasoned public servant like Mapes “makes the calculated and deliberate decision to lie in the grand jury, the criminal justice system, and our entire democracy, is threatened.”
They asked U.S. District Judge John Kness to impose a sentence of 51 to 63 months in prison.
Mapes’ attorneys, meanwhile, asked in a filing of their own for a sentence of probation and community service, arguing Mapes never stood to personally benefit from any of his alleged misstatements and that while he accepts the jury’s verdict he “disagrees with it and continues to maintain his innocence.”
“Tim Mapes is a good man,” defense attorneys Andrew Porter and Katie Hill wrote “… He has spent decades working very hard (and expecting it of others) trying to make the State of Illinois better, fairer, and more compassionate to its citizens.”
Despite Mapes’ reputation among some in Springfield as a power-hungry bully, the defense filing characterized him as a down-to-earth family man who rose from humble beginnings and was always “looking out for the little guy.”
The defense also submitted dozens of letters to the judge from Mapes’ family, friends and former colleagues describing him as a mentor, someone who would always go out of his way to help others, even when no one was looking.
“He does so not for any reward, but because he believes it is the right thing to do,” Mapes’ lawyers said.
The letters were filed under seal, so the identities of the authors could not be determined. But several purportedly came from former Illinois legislators and colleagues on the former speaker’s staff, including one that claimed the media mischaracterized Mapes’ now-infamous “No One Gets in to See the Wizard” sign, which was displayed in his office and was widely seen as a hallmark of his role as Madigan’s loyal gatekeeper.
The sign, which was a gift from then-state Senate President John Cullerton, “was meant to throw some humor on the impossible nature of the job Tim had, not some pronouncement of power as the media portrayed it,” stated the letter writer, described in the filing as a former colleague who had worked with Mapes for decades and retired in 2014.
On Sunday, prosecutors objected to the letters remaining under seal, writing that a “significant number” of them are from current and former elected officials, including a congressman, as well as employees of state government and, in one case, a sitting state appellate judge.
“If there is any case for which public disclosure is warranted and appropriate, it this one, given the interplay between the defendant’s status as a public official and the nature of the underlying grand jury investigation,” the filing stated.
Mapes, 69, was convicted at trial 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 was giving to his longtime confidant, Michael McClain.
The jury’s swift verdict was the latest in a string of convictions stemming from the federal investigation into Madigan’s once-vaunted political operation.
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 sold his political office for personal gain. That trial is set to begin in October.
Mapes spent years as Madigan’s chief of staff and executive director of the state Democratic Party, when, as the speaker’s premier gatekeeper, he strode the halls of power with an almost autocratic style. He also served as the clerk of the House, where he was known as a details-driven micromanager adept at keeping the legislative trains running.
Madigan unceremoniously dumped Mapes from all three positions in June 2018 after a staffer accused him of sexual harassment, during a year in which the #MeToo movement cost the careers of several Madigan allies.
In Mapes’ trial, Madigan, McClain and Mapes were described as the major players in a triangle of power that held sway over the longtime speaker’s Democratic House caucus, government operations and major grip on statewide politics.
Mapes’ attorneys argued at trial that Mapes did his “level best” to provide truthful answers in his grand jury testimony. They also accused prosecutors of asking open-ended questions and failing to provide Mapes with corroborating materials that might refresh his recollection of years-old conversations.
A slew of Democratic Springfield insiders lined up to testify for the prosecution, describing McClain as one of Madigan’s closest advisers, who had served with Madigan in the state legislature decades ago and had singular access to the speaker as a lobbyist for ComEd.
It was also well known around the Capitol that McClain continued to do sensitive work for the speaker after McClain’s retirement from lobbying in 2016, according to testimony.
Prosecutors also played for the jury multiple wiretapped calls where Mapes was captured talking with McClain about issues he claimed in the grand jury to know little or nothing about.
Among them was a Madigan-orchestrated plan to dump then-state Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, who was potentially facing sexual harassment allegations. On one call from Oct. 31, 2018, McClain told Mapes he was going to wait until a batch of Lang’s fundraising checks cleared, “And then I gotta tell him that he’s gotta move on. That he has no future in the House.”
“Will you be wearing your big boy pants that day?” Mapes asked, laughing.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
rlong@chicagotribune.com