CHICAGO (CN) — The jury began deliberations Wednesday afternoon in the federal corruption trial of ex-Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan.
Before jurors began assessing the 23 racketeering, fraud, bribery and conspiracy charges Madigan faces — Madigan’s co-defendant and longtime ally Mike McClain joins him on six of those counts — federal prosecutor Amarjeet Bhachu presented them with the government’s most basic accusations against the former speaker.
“He had the trust that was placed in him by each and every member of the public,” Bhachu said of Madigan, adding that the former speaker “abused that trust.”
“He lost his way,” Bhachu said. “He was blinded by profit. By power. By his desire to stay in power.”
Madigan served in the Illinois House for 50 years before retiring in 2021, and led it as speaker for 36 years. He also served as chair of the Democratic Party of Illinois for over two decades.
Throughout trial prosecutors have painted Madigan as a political kingpin in Chicago and Springfield — the head of the so-called “Madigan Enterprise.” They claim that between 2011 and 2019, he tried to use his significant public power to funnel jobs and benefits to his allies, and to direct work to his private law firm Madigan & Getzendanner. Bhachu said McClain, a veteran lobbyist who once also served as a Democratic state legislator, acted as Madigan’s agent and “bag man.”
Madigan and McClain both face an overarching racketeering conspiracy charge stemming from their participation in the purported enterprise. The remaining counts stem from five discreet “episodes,” as prosecutors termed them at the start of the trial.
The largest of these episodes involves Madigan’s support for energy company ComEd’s legislative agenda in the Illinois House between 2011 and 2019, in exchange for ComEd arranging jobs and contracts for his allies. A major focus for the prosecution was how five Madigan allies — Chicago political workers Ray Nice and Ed Moody, former Chicago aldermen Frank Olivo and Mike Zalewski Sr. and former Democratic state representative Eddie Acevedo — reportedly received a collective $1.3 million from ComEd for do-nothing subcontract gigs. The subcontracts were arranged under law and lobbying firms which contracted with the energy company, and were themselves operated by Madigan associates.
McClain figures heavily in this episode, having worked for years as a ComEd contract lobbyist. He is one of the “ComEd Four” of ex-ComEd lobbyists and executives whom jurors convicted on separate corruption charges — related to ComEd’s attempts to win Madigan’s favor — in May 2023.
In a similar episode, prosecutors say McClain helped AT&T Illinois arrange another do-nothing subcontract for Eddie Acevedo in April 2017, this one worth $22,500. Like with ComEd, prosecutors say AT&T sought to secure Madigan’s support in the Illinois General Assembly for legislation benefitting the company.
The three other episodes of the case involve Danny Solis, an ex-Chicago alderman-turned FBI informant. Solis served as both the alderman of a development-heavy city ward and chair of the city’s zoning committee during the charge period. He began cooperating with the FBI in June 2016 amid his own corruption allegations, and secretly recorded multiple conversations with Madigan, McClain and others involved in the case starting in 2017.
Prosecutors say that’s when Madigan began reaching out to Solis for introductions to property developers, claiming the former speaker hoped to use Solis’ influential positions in city government to coerce the developers into hiring Madigan & Getzendanner for legal work.
Madigan also purportedly backed, with Solis’ help, an ultimately-unsuccessful legislative 2017 – 2018 effort to transfer a state-owned parking lot in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood to city ownership. Prosecutors claim Madigan hoped to receive legal work from potential private developers on the site, had the land transfer gone through.
Finally, the government claims Madigan tried in 2018 to help Solis get a state board position, under the then-incoming administration of Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker.
Madigan and McClain’s attorneys, during their closing arguments, attacked Solis’ credibility. Madigan’s attorney Dan Collins went so far as to call him a “malignant tumor at the heart of this case.”
“You cannot trust Danny Solis. You cannot trust him. He has his own agenda and he’s sly as a fox,” Collins told the jury on Monday.
They pointed out that Solis testified he feigned his interest in the state board job as part of his undercover work. In a secretly recorded June 29, 2017 conversation, Solis also asked an uncertain property developer named Andy Cretal if there would be a “possibility” for Madigan to get legal work from his company ZOM Living’s “Union West” apartment project.
Bhachu, on Wednesday, countered that Madigan had plenty of chances to walk away from dealing with Solis — especially after June 23, 2017, when in another conversation Solis implied the Union West developers understood development “works” via quid pro quo arrangements. Madigan also continued helping Solis find a state board job in 2018, even after Solis told the then-speaker “I’ll continue to get you legal business” that June.
“Use your common sense here,” Bhachu told the jurors during his rebuttal closings on Wednesday.
The jury received the case on the 55th day of trial overall, after listening to nearly six days of closing arguments. Since trial proceedings began in October, jurors heard from more than 60 witnesses and were shown dozens of secretly recorded video and phone clips.
Through most of the trial there were no proceedings on Fridays, but after the jury began deliberations Wednesday, they sent presiding U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey a note saying they would meet on Fridays.
“Best jury ever,” Blakey quipped on hearing the news.