CHICAGO – Throughout his five-decade career in politics, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan received hundreds of requests for job recommendations from a wide range of people he encountered.
They could be anyone from constituents down on their luck or law students looking for part-time work. At times, they included his fellow legislators who were “in the market for a second job,” the longtime speaker told a federal jury this week as he testified in his own defense in his corruption trial.
Read more: Madigan takes witness stand, denying he traded ‘public office’ for ‘private gain’ | Madigan to take witness stand in his corruption trial
Most of the time, Madigan would delegate the requests to staffers or others in his professional orbit, occasionally asking whoever was handling the matter to keep him updated. But sometimes, Madigan said, he would pass a name or resume along and never check in on it again.
The former Democratic powerbroker claimed that was the case when recently retired state Rep. Eddie Acevedo came to him in early 2017 asking for help finding clients for his lobbying business. Madigan said he forwarded the request to his friend and longtime Statehouse lobbyist Mike McClain, who eight years later is Madigan’s co-defendant in their bribery and racketeering case.
“Did you know or care about the details of Mr. McClain’s efforts on behalf of Mr. Acevedo?” McClain’s attorney Pat Cotter asked Madigan on cross-examination Wednesday.
“The answer is no,” Madigan replied.
In the spring of 2017, Acevedo ended up getting a nine-month, $22,500 consultant contract with telecom giant AT&T Illinois. Acevedo, who was ordered to testify last month despite his dementia diagnosis, gave confusing and contradictory testimony about his contract with AT&T.
Read more: Former Madigan ally contradicts past statements after being ordered to testify | On witness stand, former AT&T lobbyist describes how Madigan ally got $22,500 contract
While Madigan acknowledged that Acevedo “had a drinking problem,” he said that “when he was sober, he did just fine” as a legislator, recalling major pieces of policy he passed and his leadership position within the House Latino Caucus. The former speaker also said Acevedo’s health is “greatly deteriorated” compared to 2017 when he asked McClain to help him find work.
Prosecutors allege Acevedo did no work for those monthly checks, which were paid indirectly through a loyal Madigan aide-turned-lobbyist for AT&T. The feds allege the same was true of four other Madigan political allies who ended up on contracts with electric utility Commonwealth Edison from 2011 until the FBI’s investigation into Madigan’s inner circle became public in 2019.
But the former speaker this week claimed ignorance of that fact and said he was “very angry” to learn of the no-work contracts as part of the government’s investigation.
“Did you ever communicate to Mike McClain that anyone you were referring was to get or could get a no-show job?” Cotter asked Madigan Wednesday.
“No,” he replied, reiterating that his expectation was that everyone whose resume he passed along to McClain would work.
“He never said anything to you that he believed or suspected that anybody he recommended had a no-show job?” Cotter asked.
“No,” Madigan said again.
Prosecutors have a different take. Not only do the feds allege ComEd and AT&T granted the no-work contracts to Madigan’s political allies as bribes in order to grease the wheels for key legislation, the government also says the speaker was fully aware.
Read more: Madigan ally testifies he was rewarded with no-work contracts as ‘good soldier’ for speaker | ‘Make it a federal court suit’: Jurors hear wiretap of McClain describing subcontracts alleged to be bribes
And after Madigan’s testimony Wednesday, prosecutors will be allowed to play a wiretapped phone call in which the former speaker and McClain laugh about a different ComEd contractor, as well as others, having “made out like bandits.”
U.S. District Judge John Blakey had barred prosecutors from playing the recording at trial after extensive arguments in September. The judge overseeing a related case made the same decision in 2023 before the trial that convicted McClain and three other former ComEd lobbyists and executives for their roles in bribing Madigan.
But Blakey agreed with Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu that the “doors were opened” for prosecutors to play the tape after Madigan’s testimony – the first consequence of the high-risk decision for the former speaker to take the witness stand.
‘Some of these guys have made out like bandits’
It’s unclear whether prosecutors will be allowed to play the wiretapped call while Madigan is on the stand for cross-examination next week or will have to wait until the trial’s closing arguments later this month. But gaining permission to introduce it is a major win for the feds – and a blow to the defense.
As they have for nearly three years since Madigan and McClain were indicted, defense attorneys argued that the call is unfairly prejudicial because the pair’s conversation wasn’t about the five men whose no-work contracts with ComEd and AT&T are alleged to have been bribes to Madigan.
The only name mentioned in the part of the call at issue is Dennis Gannon, a former president of the Chicago Federation of Labor, who had been hired as a labor consultant with ComEd. In the Aug. 4, 2018, call, Madigan and McClain were discussing a union agreement Gannon was helping to negotiate.
“Remember we got him that contract, um, maybe five years ago now whenever it was?” McClain said, according to the partial transcripts that have been included in written arguments over the tape. “For a buck fifty a year.”
Prosecutors translate that to mean Gannon earned $150,000 annually. In response, Madigan laughed and said, “Some of these guys have made out like bandits, Mike.”
“Oh my God,” McClain allegedly said. “For very little work too.”
“Yeah,” Madigan said.
Read more: ‘They were being paid as a favor to Mike Madigan’: Feds’ star witness takes stand | ComEd lobbyist warned FBI mole to ‘keep Madigan happy’ and not mess with no-work contracts
In pretrial arguments over the tape, prosecutors pointed out that while Madigan and McClain had been talking about Gannon, the former speaker’s use of the plural “some of these guys” meant he was talking about people beyond just Gannon.
“The defense wants the ability to say Madigan had no idea there were people at ComEd doing no work,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia Schwartz said at the September hearing. “This proves otherwise.”
But Blakey at the time agreed with the defense’s contention that it was unclear who Madigan was referring to, making it unfairly prejudicial. However, he said, he could revisit the issue during trial. And on Wednesday, he did – over Madigan attorney Dan Collins’ objections that Gannon’s contract had “nothing to do with Mike Madigan.”
‘I would not be involved in a quid pro quo’
Blakey heard arguments over the “bandits” tape and more after the jury left the courtroom on Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s National Day of Mourning for former President Jimmy Carter. They’re not due back until Monday, but before then he must rule on myriad questions over where prosecutors can and can’t go during Madigan’s cross-examination.
The former speaker’s decision to testify will lengthen the already long trial, which was originally predicted to wrap before Christmas. On Tuesday and Wednesday, Blakey’s various comments to the parties indicated the jury might instead be deliberating through the end of January – or possibly even later.
The judge has also yet to rule on critical portions of the complex set of jury instructions that will govern deliberations. Arguments over those – along with the bounds of cross-examination – may delay the trial even further.
But on Wednesday, Blakey joked to the attorneys that he “may ruin your weekend” because he believed some of Madigan’s morning testimony could open another door to prosecutors being able to ask the former speaker about his understanding of state ethics laws.
The exchange came during Collins’ questions about his interactions with former Chicago Ald. Danny Solis, who secretly recorded Madigan at the FBI’s direction in 2017 and 2018 as part of his cooperation with the government.
Both Solis and the lead agent overseeing the FBI’s yearslong criminal probe confirmed during their stints on the witness stand that Madigan was not the target of the investigation until the speaker called Solis out of the blue in June 2017. Madigan called to ask Solis about a proposed apartment building project in Chicago’s booming West Loop neighborhood, seeking an introduction to the developer.
Madigan on Wednesday said he’d done the same at least one other time in 2014, though his property tax appeals law firm never ended up contracting with that developer. The former speaker said he’d known Solis since the mid-1980s through his community organizing efforts in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood and had maintained a friendly relationship during Solis’ rise through city council.
By the time of his call in June 2017, Solis had been chair of the council’s powerful zoning committee for nearly a decade – and, unbeknownst to Madigan, had been cooperating with the FBI for a year.
When Solis later returned Madigan’s call at the FBI’s direction, Solis told the speaker something he’d later tell the jury “was dumb” in retrospect.
“I think they understand – they’ve got some issues that they still have to deal with me in terms of zoning,” Solis said before explaining the timing of the meeting he intended to set up between Madigan and the developer. “I think they understand how this works, you know, the quid pro quo.”
“Yeah, okay,” Madigan said.
Showing Madigan the transcript of the wiretapped call, Collins asked his client to “describe what your reaction was in your head.”
“A great deal of surprise and concern,” Madigan said, adding that in the decades he’d known Solis at that point, he’d heard “nothing negative” about the alderman.
Madigan said he’d continued to mull Solis’ use of the term and “decided I wanted to have a face-to-face meeting to tell him I would not be involved in a quid pro quo.”
A few weeks later, Solis brought the developer to Madigan’s downtown Chicago law office to meet with the speaker and his law partner, Vincent “Bud” Getzendanner. In the meeting, which lasted a little over half an hour, Madigan was mostly silent, letting Getzendanner explain how the firm usually handled property tax appeals for large developments.
But prosecutors were most interested in what happened before the meeting, when Madigan pulled Solis into his office and closed the door, admonishing the alderman in a near-whisper.
“Over the phone, you made a comment that there, that there was a quid pro quo,” Madigan said in the video, to which Solis replied: “Oh, I’m sorry. Yeah.”
“You shouldn’t be talking like that,” Madigan continued. “You’re just recommending our law firm because if they don’t get a good result on the real estate taxes, the whole project would be in trouble. Which is not good for your ward. So you want high-quality representation.”
Since prosecutors first highlighted this exchange in pre-trial motions more than two years ago, the feds have characterized it as Madigan providing a false story for Solis. But Collins on Wednesday walked Madigan through a reframing of the exchange.
“Did you observe his reaction in the moment?” Collins asked Wednesday.
“His expression was such that it told me he had gotten the message from me that I was not going to be involved in a quid pro quo,” Madigan answered, saying Solis’ expression was “apologetic.”
Madigan said he felt comfortable proceeding with the meeting because he felt he’d gotten the message across that “I was not going to connect a request for an introduction with anything else” and because Solis “genuinely appeared to recognize that he had made a serious mistake.”
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