Crime & Law
‘That Thing Was a Hot Potato’: Testimony in Madigan Corruption Trial Returns to Failed Chinatown Land Deal
Ex-lobbyist Mike McClain, left, longtime confidant to former House Speaker Michael Madigan, right, are pictured in previous appearances at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago in relation to their public corruption trials. (Andrew Adams / Capitol News Illinois)
As Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and his right-hand man Michael McClain pushed for what they believed would be a relatively simple bill to transfer ownership over a plot of land in Chicago’s Chinatown from the state to the city in 2018, they ran repeatedly into roadblock after roadblock.
First, McClain had to work behind the scenes through Republican lobbyist Nancy Kimme to get the bill past then-governor and Madigan’s sworn enemy Bruce Rauner. Then they found more political strife as other legislators sought to put a brick on the land deal.
“Little did we know that thing was a hot potato,” Kimme told McClain during a wiretapped phone call in May 2018.
That land transfer centers on Madigan’s alleged efforts to illegally steer business to his private property tax law firm amid efforts to develop a state-owned parcel of land in Chinatown into a commercial development.
That is one of five separate schemes prosecutors have accused the former house speaker of orchestrating at his ongoing racketeering trial. Madigan, 82, and his longtime friend and confidant McClain, 77, are charged with racketeering, bribery and wire fraud.
They have each pleaded not guilty.
Kimme testified for much of the day Thursday about her work alongside McClain to get the Chinatown land deal finalized. That land — which was owned by the state of Illinois and was leased to a nonprofit that ran a parking lot on the parcel — needed to be transferred to the city of Chicago so it could then be sold to developers.
Last week, jurors heard McClain outline for former 25th Ward Ald. Danny Solis the need to bring on Kimme to help sway Rauner in support of the land transfer. McClain stressed that he was close with Kimme, but Rauner didn’t know that, and that if the governor had any whiff that Madigan was interested in the land transfer, he’d shut it down immediately.
Solis had indicated he could help Madigan’s law firm get business from the project developers should the land transfer go through. The disgraced former 25th Ward alderperson, who secretly recorded calls and conversations for years under government orders, testified across six separate days as part of a deferred prosecution agreement stemming from his own bribery charge.
On Thursday, jurors heard numerous secretly recorded phone calls between McClain and Kimme as they discussed their increasingly fraught plans to transfer the land.
Madigan and McClain wanted to ensure it was voted on at that point because with a gubernatorial election in fall 2018 between Rauner and Democratic challenger J.B. Pritzker, they were concerned it could be delayed even more extensively no matter who won.
Instead of a simple transfer deal, McClain and Kimme learned other state legislators including Martin Sandoval and Tony Munoz were seeking to jam up the transfer, and a plan to move the transfer through on a bill from Senate President Don Harmon had fallen through.
“I don’t know what to do to fix this f--king thing,” an exasperated Kimme told McClain in a May 31, 2018, call played in court. That day marked the last of that year’s spring legislative session.
Munoz had sought to tie the transfer of a separate property into the Chinatown deal, while Sandoval had a personal issue with Solis that McClain and Kimme believed had turned him against the deal. Kimme testified there was “a lot of friction” between the men because Sandoval’s daughter was running for political office and Solis had not supported her candidacy.
“I don’t know why he goes out of his way to piss off the speaker,” Kimme said of Sandoval in an April 2018 call.
The transfer bill didn’t go through during the 2018 spring legislative session, but Kimme testified that she and McClain continued pushing for it in the fall session.
The pair at this point discussed other legislators who could sponsor the bill and whether it’d be wiser to hold the bill as it was becoming more clear Pritzker would defeat Rauner, and there were concerns that the outgoing governor would “start vetoing everything” before leaving office.
By then, after months of failed efforts to move the legislation forward, Kimme in a Nov. 1, 2018, call referred to the transfer as “that stupid f--king Chinatown bill.”
McClain and Kimme had found a Republican sponsor for the bill, state Rep. Avery Bourne, but with Rauner voted out, the pair decided to try and find a new Democratic sponsor. Handing the bill over led to more problems. Meanwhile, Chinatown community leaders and state Rep. Theresa Mah, whose district includes Chinatown, soured on the transfer.
From that point on, Kimme testified, she no longer worked on passing that bill.
While the efforts went nowhere, Kimme on cross-examination testified all the strategizing she did for months and months with McClain was simply a normal part of lobbying.
“Politics,” McClain defense attorney Patrick Cotter said, “is a huge part of what you as a lobbyist have to navigate?”
“Right,” Kimme replied.
Kimme referred to the entire episode as an “absolute disaster” and testified land transfers are fairly routine in Springfield.
“When you took on this assignment you didn’t think it was going to be the heavy lift it became?” Madigan attorney Tom Breen asked on cross-examination.
“That’s correct” Kimme answered.
