UPDATED: Madigan guilty of bribery as split verdict punctuates ex-speaker’s fall

February 13, 2025 | By by Hannah Meisel, Capitol News Illinois

Michael McClain and Michael Madigan — Photos from Capitol News Illinois

UPDATED – 9:15 P.M. This story has been updated from an initial breaking news brief.

CHICAGO – Former Democratic Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, the longest-serving legislative leader in U.S. history, has joined the list of Illinois political figures who’ve been convicted on public corruption charges after a federal jury Wednesday found him guilty on 10 of 23 counts.

But the jury, which deliberated for roughly 65 hours over two weeks following a marathon three months of evidence and testimony, was split in its verdict on Wednesday. Jurors acquitted the former speaker on seven other charges and ultimately deadlocked on six counts, on which U.S. District Judge John Blakey declared a mistrial.

Madigan’s co-defendant, veteran Springfield lobbyist Mike McClain, walked free after the jury deadlocked on those same charges. Prosecutors had alleged the ex-speaker and McClain – his close friend dating back to the 1970s when they were young legislators in the Illinois House – ran a “criminal enterprise” meant to preserve and enhance Madigan’s political power, in addition to enriching them and their allies.

But the jury did not return a verdict in the overarching racketeering charge against the two men. They also failed to agree on five other corruption counts concerning alleged bribery schemes involving telecom giant AT&T Illinois and a proposed apartment complex on state-owned land in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood.

Jurors did find Madigan guilty on three separate bribery counts involving no-work contracts for the former speaker’s allies at electric utility Commonwealth Edison. While the jury convicted Madigan on wire fraud and Travel Act violation counts related to an alleged scheme to help get Chicago alderman-turned-FBI mole Danny Solis appointed to a lucrative state board position, jurors acquitted him of the bribery charge pertaining to the same alleged scheme.

Madigan exited the courthouse soon after the verdict, declining to comment to a reporter while still upstairs but shaking his hand and smiling before getting onto an elevator down to the lobby. The former speaker continued to ignore reporters’ questions while he, his attorneys and two of his daughters walked across the street from the courthouse in the falling snow.

As the courtroom deputy read the jury’s verdict Wednesday morning, the 82-year-old Madigan sat stone-faced at the head of his defense table in U.S. District Judge John Blakey’s wood-paneled courtroom – the same spot he’s spent nearly every weekday since early October when jury selection for the trial began.

McClain was similarly stoic while the verdict was read but appeared to get emotional after his family members got teary-eyed when it became clear the jury had deadlocked on the McClain-specific counts.

His attorney, Patrick Cotter, briefly addressed reporters on his way out of the courthouse, saying McClain – who was already convicted for his role in ComEd’s Madigan-focused bribery scheme in 2023 – was walking out of court the same way he walked in: “as an innocent man.”

Asked if he was surprised by the verdict, McClain replied, “I was surprised when I was indicted.”

“My head is spinning,” he added before Cotter steered him out of the media gaggle.

Mike McClain, a longtime Springfield lobbyist and confidant to ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan, exits the Dirksen Federal Courthouse on Wednesday , Feb. 12, after a jury deadlocked on all six charges alleged against him. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

The jury’s decision comes four years since Madigan mostly stepped away from politics, having been forced to give up his speaker’s gavel amid growing pressure from his own Democratic House caucus in January 2021 as a federal criminal investigation into his inner circle drew nearer. In the weeks that followed his demotion back to a mere state representative, the former speaker would also resign from the legislative seat he’d held for five decades and from his position as chair of the state’s Democratic Party.

Even after Madigan retreated from public life, it took another year for a grand jury to indict him on 22 counts – later upped to 23 – of racketeering, bribery, extortion and wire fraud, alleging he both solicited and accepted bribes to benefit him both politically and personally.

In an impromptu interview, a juror who identified himself as Malik but declined to give his last name spoke with reporters outside the courthouse as Madigan and his group passed by. Mables said he was surprised to learn that McClain had been convicted in 2023 in a trial featuring much of the same evidence as the one that ended Wednesday. He said that while he still distrusts lobbying as an industry, he came to view McClain’s actions as merely legal lobbying – just as McClain’s attorneys argued.

A juror in the trial of ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan speaks to reporters after Madigan was convicted on 10 public corruption charges and acquitted on seven others Wednesday, Feb. 12. He said two jurors were holdouts on certain counts, resulting in a mistrial on six charges. He declined to give his name to reporters, though it will eventually be released as the judge unseals jury selection records. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

He said his fellow jurors struggled over some counts, like the overarching racketeering charge. But he cited one count as clear: an allegation that Madigan participated in a bribery conspiracy to get five of his allies no-work contracts with ComEd. Prosecutors alleged the contracts were meant as bribes to Madigan in order to grease the wheels for legislation the utility supported in Springfield.

“That was absolutely there,” the juror said of the government’s evidence that Madigan was aware of the no-work contracts – despite the former speaker’s claims that he didn’t know about them in his stunning turn on the witness stand last month.

But the jury deadlocked on a similar bribery charge in which both Madigan and McClain were alleged to have arranged a similar scheme with AT&T Illinois.

Speaking to reporters an hour after the verdict was delivered, acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Morris Pasquale said there had not yet been a decision on whether to retry Madigan on the counts over which jury had deadlocked. Still, he framed the split decision as a win.

Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Morris Pasquale speaks to reporters on Wednesday, Feb. 12, at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. He said there had not yet been a decision on whether to retry Madigan and McClain on the counts over which the jury had deadlocked. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

“Bribery – whether it’s the old-fashioned cash stuffed in an envelope or the more refined version practiced by Madigan – is still illegal, it’s still corrupt and it’s still against the law, and it still undermines public confidence in government,” he said. “Public officials can choose to violate the public trust can and should be held accountable.”

Yearslong investigation

Wednesday’s verdict not only ends a marathon four-month trial – one that was scheduled to wrap up before the holidays – but also marks the culmination of a federal criminal probe that began more than a decade ago.

Though Madigan is the biggest fish the feds reeled in during the long-running investigation, he’s far from the only big name. Chicago’s longest-serving alderman, Ed Burke, was among at least 14 other politicians, lobbyists and business executives the probe ensnared. Burke is now serving two years in federal prison after his late 2023 conviction on racketeering and bribery charges similar to some elements in Madigan’s case.

When Burke was indicted, prosecutors revealed a now-infamous May 2017 wiretapped call in which the alderman asked about another big fish: “So, did we, uh, land the tuna?” Burke, who was on the phone with Solis, was referring to a major real estate developer Burke was courting for his property tax appeals-focused law firm.

At the time, Solis was nearly a year into cooperating with the FBI after having been caught accepting bribes and abusing his campaign funds as he faced personal financial turmoil exacerbated by an extramarital affair. But instead of charging Solis, the feds sought to use him to catch something even bigger.

Former Chicago Ald. Danny Solis and his attorney, Lisa Noller, walk into Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Courthouse on Dec. 2, 2024, for another day of testimony in the corruption trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. Solis, who spent 2 ½ years as an undercover cooperator for the FBI, testified for six days during trial. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

Solis’ job as chair of the city council’s influential zoning committee put him in regular contact with high-profile real estate developers that would make for high-paying clients at firms like Burke’s – and Madigan’s.

Solis had actually introduced Madigan to a couple developers before, including during an August 2014 meeting at the speaker’s downtown Chicago law office where, unbeknownst to either elected official, one of the developers was secretly recording for the FBI. The video helped agents build their case against Solis, but Madigan’s firm didn’t get any business out of the meeting and the FBI’s interest in Madigan went dormant.

That changed when the speaker called Solis in June 2017 to ask if a high-rise apartment project proposed in Chicago’s booming West Loop neighborhood was likely to go forward. The alderman understood that Madigan was asking for an introduction and asked if he knew the developer.

“No, but I’d like to,” the speaker replied.

From there, Solis acted at the FBI’s direction over dozens of interactions with Madigan and McClain for the next 1 ½ years. That included allowing his calls to be wiretapped and secretly videotaping meetings until his identity as a cooperating witness was revealed by the Chicago Sun-Times in January 2019. In that time, prosecutors alleged Madigan engaged in attempted extortion and bribery – including promising to recommend Solis get appointed to a lucrative state board position upon his retirement in exchange for the alderman’s continued introductions to potential clients.

But the jury acquitted Madigan on that bribery charge, instead only convicting him on three counts each of wire fraud and violations of the federal Travel Act related to the effort to get Solis a state appointment. As laid out in trial, Madigan never ended up recommending Solis to newly elected Gov. JB Pritzker.

Madigan was also acquitted of attempted extortion and three related counts alleging Travel Act violations having to do with the real estate developer Madigan originally called Solis about. At the FBI’s direction, Solis told the speaker ahead of the July 2017 introduction meeting that the developer understood “how this works, you know, the quid pro quo.” He was insinuating the company was under the impression that it would not get the zoning approvals it needed unless it hired the speaker’s law firm, though it wasn’t true.

A few weeks later, Madigan admonished Solis before the developer meeting, telling the alderman, “You shouldn’t be talking like that.”

Ultimately, Madigan’s law firm retained the developer as a client. When the former speaker’s attorneys called the developer to testify in early January, he said that while he was initially worried about the meeting, he didn’t feel extorted.

Then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is captured in a video Chicago Ald. Danny Solis secretly recorded at the direction of the FBI at the speaker’s law offices in July 2017. (Video screenshot from government exhibits shown Nov. 25, 2024)

The feds also alleged the bribery arrangement with Solis included Madigan and McClain’s help in the alderman’s ultimately unsuccessful effort to get state-owned land in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood transferred to the city. From there, Solis wanted to see the land, which was in his 25^th Ward, be sold to a developer with plans to build a mixed-use apartment building.

After Madigan tapped him to help with the Chinatown deal, McClain recruited a Republican lobbyist to lead the efforts to pass the land transfer through the General Assembly. Meanwhile, Madigan was kept up to date on the deal and at one point suggested a new sponsor for the bill to increase its chances of passing with the Chinatown parcel included.

Prosecutors alleged Madigan intended to have his firm contract with the Chinatown developer in accordance with hints Solis had dropped on secret recordings. But Madigan’s former law partner and testimony from two former top lawyers in the speaker’s office indicated the law firm had strict conflict-of-interest rules that would have prohibited the developer from ever becoming a client.

Ultimately, the jury couldn’t come to a consensus on the five Chinatown-related counts, which included charges of bribery, wire fraud and Travel Act violations.

The FBI began wiretapping McClain’s cell phone in April 2018, about six months into his involvement in the Chinatown deal. His calls would continue to be intercepted for most of the following year, giving the feds insight into his efforts as Madigan’s self-described “agent.”

The calls would reveal evidence that McClain facilitated an alleged no-work contract for the speaker’s ally, retiring Chicago Ald. Michael Zalewski, at ComEd, McClain’s biggest lobbying client for decades.

Two years, one additional FBI cooperating witness and several more secretly recorded meetings later, the feds would allege Zalewski’s contract was just one in a series of gigs Madigan allies got at ComEd that were meant as bribes to influence the powerful speaker.

Prosecutors allege five no-work contractors, including Zalewski, were paid $1.3 million between 2011 and 2019. The jury on Wednesday convicted Madigan on three counts of bribery for his involvement in the scheme, but acquitted the former speaker on another bribery count that encompassed his push for Latino business leader Juan Ochoa’s appointment to the ComEd board.

‘Public Official A’

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic – in between executive orders closing schools and shuttering non-essential businesses – Madigan advised House members through his chief of staff that “a call to return to Springfield … would only occur if necessary.”

The pandemic gave Madigan space from members who were increasingly critical of his leadership. House Democrats’ confidence in the speaker had already taken a hit in 2018, when Madigan was forced to ouster four key allies from his political and official organization after separate sexual harassment and bullying allegations against them at the height of the #MeToo era.

Though that once-boiling scandal had been lowered to a simmer by March 2020, the previous eight months had delivered a near-unbroken string of weekly news about the feds’ unfolding criminal probe, beginning with leaks in the summer of 2019 about coordinated FBI searches on some of Madigan’s closest allies. That included McClain, Madigan’s close friend for decades.

As summer turned to fall, agents conducted more public raids on a state senator’s home and offices, including in the state Capitol building. The same day, the FBI visited Chicago suburbs who’d done business with Madigan’s son Andrew’s insurance company. And in October, a member of Madigan’s House Democratic caucus was arrested and accused of attempting to bribe a sitting state senator who’d been cooperating with the FBI.

That arrest was revealed on the same day lawmakers returned to Springfield for their fall veto session in October 2019. In a rare – and brief – availability with reporters in the crowded and noisy hallway off the Statehouse rotunda, the longtime speaker said he would take steps for House members to expel the representative from the body if he did not resign.

But quickly, the questions turned to why Madigan’s name had shown up in subpoenas made public after the spate of recent FBI searches and if he’d been contacted by the feds – which the speaker met with shrugs and a flat “no.” In response to a reporter asking whether he was a target of the investigation, Madigan issued a categorical denial.

“No, I’m not a target of anything,” he said.

In a rare media availability with reporters in October 2019, then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan denies being a target of a growing federal investigation into corruption. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Hannah Meisel)

And though those other elected officials’ legal troubles turned out to not be directly related to Madigan, the leaks about what the feds were seeking in their sprawling criminal probe kept coming.

In late 2019, the Chicago Tribune reported the feds were looking into payments a handful of Madigan allies made to Kevin Quinn, whose alleged sexual harassment made public in February 2018 allegations set off a firestorm against Madigan.

In early 2020, Chicago public radio station WBEZ reported on a 2012 email from McClain urging Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration not to fire someone who’d “kept his mouth shut” on ghost payrollers and “the rape in Champaign.”

Five years later, it’s still unclear what exactly that email was referring to. But the damaging story added to the heat Madigan was facing from his own caucus, as did McClain telling WBEZ reporters seeking comment on his 2012 email that he’d been approached by the feds asking him to cooperate against Madigan – though he indicated he would not.

When COVID hit, Madigan was able to disappear into a bubble much quieter than the increasingly difficult environment he was facing in Springfield during lawmakers’ normal legislative session. Unlike the other three caucuses, House Democrats did not hold a single virtual caucus meeting for the rest of 2020, only coming together for a tense four-day pandemic special session that May, during which lawmakers dealt with more pressing issues like Illinois’ enormous COVID-related budget hole and other pandemic relief.

But in July 2020, Madigan’s confident assertion from the previous fall that he wasn’t the target of anything was officially proven wrong. Federal prosecutors announced ComEd would pay a $200 million fine as part of a deferred prosecution agreement acknowledging its role in an alleged yearslong bribery scheme meant to curry favor with Madigan.

In that document, the speaker – who for decades had been given many notable nicknames like “the velvet hammer” to define his approach to power – was referred to for the first time by a new moniker: Public Official A.

Aftershock indictments

Prosecutors alleged ComEd gave contracts and jobs to Madigan allies as bribes in exchange for his help in passing major legislation in Springfield, including a 2011 “Smart Grid” law worth “hundreds of millions of dollars” to the utility, according to prosecutors.

The following months included a guilty plea from the ComEd exec-turned-FBI mole whose cooperation with the government helped bring charges against the utility. McClain and three other ex-ComEd executives and lobbyists, later dubbed the “ComEd Four,” then faced their own bombshell charges. They were accused of facilitating the alleged bribes to Madigan and would eventually be convicted in May 2023 after a seven-week trial. Their sentencings have been on hold for more than a year.

Former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore walks away from the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in downtown Chicago on May 2, 2023, after a jury found her guilty of helping to bribe longtime House Speaker Michael Madigan. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

By the end of 2020, enough members of Madigan’s House Democratic caucus had publicly committed to voting against their longtime leader at the start of a new two-year General Assembly. But Madigan kept up his fight for a 19^th term as speaker until a behind-closed-doors vote in early 2021 made clear he had no path to retain his title.

Over the next few months, Springfield adjusted to a new political reality without Madigan, but reminders of the feds’ investigation were never far.

In late February 2021, the same week the former speaker picked his replacement in the House – and then a replacement to that replacement – former Democratic state Rep. Eddie Acevedo was indicted on tax evasion charges along with his two sons.

The charges came seven months after the feds subpoenaed Madigan’s office for communications the speaker may have had with Acevedo about contracts, payments or jobs for him or his family. It was later revealed the Acevedos had consulting contracts with both ComEd and AT&T Illinois. All three served short prison stints after pleading guilty or, in Alex Acevedo’s case, a jury trial in early 2023.

Former Democratic state Rep. Eddie Acevedo and his attorney Gabrielle Sansonetti exit the Dirksen Federal Courthouse on Wednesday, Dec. 11, after being ordered to testify in ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s corruption trial. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

A month later, former state Sen. Annazette Collins, who’d spent a decade serving in the House under Madigan, was also charged with tax evasion. Collins had been an external lobbyist for both ComEd and AT&T Illinois. Though her attorney initially told WBEZ that Collins had done nothing wrong and was collateral damage in the feds’ investigation of Madigan, a jury last year convicted her. She’s currently serving a year in prison, set for a late November release.

But the biggest clue that the feds were aiming straight at Madigan – and weren’t intending to stop at his inner circle – came in the waning days of lawmakers’ spring session when a grand jury indicted Tim Mapes, the former speaker’s longtime chief of staff. Mapes had been fired after being accused of sexual harassment in 2018, but his indictment on perjury and attempted obstruction of justice charges shocked Springfield.

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s longtime chief of staff Tim Mapes exits the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in downtown Chicago on Monday, Feb. 12, 2024, after he was sentenced to 30 months in prison for perjury and attempted obstruction of justice. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

Mapes is currently serving a 2 ½-year sentence for lying to a grand jury about Madigan and McClain’s relationship, despite being put under an immunity order.

Madigan indicted

It would be another nine months after Mapes’ indictment that prosecutors would finally announce Madigan’s. In early March 2022, the former speaker was charged, along with McClain, in a 106-page indictment outlining what the feds called “the Madigan Enterprise” – the backbone of a racketeering charge that incorporated many more corruption counts, including the alleged ComEd-related bribery scheme.

But it also for the first time revealed alleged bribery and extortion involving the former speaker’s property tax appeals-focused law firm and Solis.

The final element in the legal drama wasn’t added to the mix until October 2022, when both AT&T Illinois and its former president were charged with bribing Madigan. An additional count involving AT&T’s alleged bribery was also added to the former speaker and McClain’s indictment.

Former AT&T Illinois president Paul La Schiazza exits the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago in September 2024 after jury selection in his bribery trial, which ultimately ended in a hung jury. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)

But when it came time for former AT&T Illinois president Paul La Schiazza’s day in court in September last year – just a few weeks before the start of Madigan’s own trial – the jury deadlocked on the question of whether La Schiazza bribed the former speaker. Like the alleged ComEd bribery scheme, the feds said that AT&T’s indirect contract with Acevedo in 2017 was meant to influence Madigan while the company was pushing for a law that would allow it to stop the expensive maintenance of its aging copper landline network in Illinois.

On Wednesday, the Madigan jury followed suit, deadlocking on the single AT&T-related bribery charge against both Madigan and McClain, which had alleged they were both in on the conspiracy to bribe the speaker via Acevedo’s contract.

La Schiazza faces a retrial in his own case in June.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.