Crime & Law

A Jury Will Now Decide Michael Madigan’s Fate. Here’s a Breakdown of the Landmark Corruption Case

After more than three months of testimony and arguments, a 12-person jury began deliberations Wednesday in the landmark corruption trial of powerful former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and his longtime right-hand man Michael McClain.

Closing arguments began last week, 16 weeks after jury selection and opening statements got underway on the 12th floor of the Dirksen Federal Court Building in downtown Chicago.

In between, the jury of eight women and four men heard testimony from dozens of witnesses, viewed hundreds of pieces of evidence and were played scores of secretly recorded wiretapped phone calls that served as the bulk of the government’s case against the longtime speaker.

The jury also heard from Madigan himself, who testified in his own defense over parts of four days, as he claimed he’d never solicited a bribe or sought to trade his public office for any personal gain.

Below is a roundup of the players, charges and specific allegations laid out in this historic case in Illinois political history as it draws near a close.

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan leaves the Dirksen Federal Courthouse after the first day of his corruption trial on Oct. 22, 2024. (Andrew Adams / Capitol News Illinois)

Key Players

Michael Madigan — Madigan, also known as the “Velvet Hammer,” was the longest-serving state legislative leader in the country before his resignation in 2021. The Chicago Democrat from the 13th Ward served as a state representative for 50 years and as House Speaker for a record 36 years. His long leadership tenure and status as speaker meant he largely controlled which pieces of legislation lived or died.

Illinois’ most powerful politician for decades, Madigan represented the 22nd District on Chicago’s Southwest Side for 50 years and led the Democratic Party of Illinois for 20 years before he was forced from power amid corruption rumors.

Michael McClain — Prosecutors described McClain, a former state legislator himself, as Madigan’s “soldier and surrogate” who made it his business to carry out the speaker’s dirty work. McClain served alongside Madigan in the House in the 1970s and ‘80s, and the two remained close after McClain moved on to become a lobbyist.

McClain had numerous lobbying clients over the years, including utility giant Commonwealth Edison, though he maintained in secretly wiretapped phone conversations that his “real client” was always Madigan.

McClain and three other ComEd officials were previously convicted of conspiring to bribe Madigan in the 2023 “ComEd Four” trial.

Michael McClain speaks with Danny Solis in a secret recording made by Solis at his office on Nov. 14, 2017. (U.S. Attorneys Office)

Danny Solis — The former 25th Ward alderperson and chair of the city’s powerful Zoning Committee, Solis served as the government’s star witness after he secretly recorded numerous conversations, both in-person and over the phone, with Madigan, McClain and others.

Solis agreed to act as an undercover mole for the government in June 2016 after he was confronted by FBI investigators with evidence of his own bribery and corruption during his time in office.

The Solis recordings represent some of the most crucial evidence against Madigan in the Chinatown, Union West and state board seat schemes, detailed below. He also testified under a deferred prosecution agreement and is not expected to serve any time in jail.

Fidel Marquez — The other government cooperator who testified at trial, Marquez is a former ComEd executive who allegedly worked with the “ComEd Four” to try to bribe Madigan. He began recording calls and conversations in early 2019 when — in similar fashion to Solis — federal investigators presented him with evidence of his own involvement in the alleged ComEd plot.

According to Marquez, he and the other ComEd officials had arranged to pay certain subcontractors through intermediaries in order to conceal the fact that they were being paid by the utility company to do essentially no work.

He has since pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges, but has not yet been sentenced.

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What Are the Charges?

Madigan faces 23 separate charges, including racketeering conspiracy, federal program bribery, wire fraud and attempted extortion. He’s also accused of violating the Travel Act due to his alleged use of interstate communication in furtherance of some of those other alleged crimes.

McClain is charged alongside his longtime ally on the racketeering conspiracy charges, as well as additional counts of wire fraud, bribery and Travel Act violations.

Both men have pleaded not guilty.

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Corruption Scheme Allegations

Over the months of testimony, federal prosecutors detailed five separate corruption schemes allegedly orchestrated by Madigan. McClain is also accused of involvement in many of those allegations, though not all.

ComEd Bribery

In the most substantial and sprawling of the alleged schemes, Madigan and McClain are accused of arranging subcontractor jobs for four of the former speaker’s associates with ComEd.

The utility company allegedly paid those individuals — 13th Ward precinct captains Ray Nice and Ed Moody, and former Chicago Alds. Frank Olivo and Michael Zalewski — more than $1 million even as they did little or no work, in order to win over Madigan’s support on critical energy legislation in Springfield.

Those four were never charged with any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors claimed Madigan used ComEd as his “personal piggy bank” by using the company to pay his allies so he wouldn’t have to.

Moody, the only one of the subcontractors to testify, told jurors that Madigan had arranged his no-work contract for him contingent on him maintaining his campaign work for the speaker.

“Do the political work, keep the contract,” Moody testified when asked to characterize his understanding of the arrangement. “Don’t do the political work, don’t keep the contract.”

ComEd also allegedly tried to bribe Madigan and remain in his good graces by offering annual internship slots to students from the 13th Ward, even if they didn’t always meet applicant requirements.

“It was done as a favor to Michael Madigan,” Fidel Marquez testified about those slots.

Prosecutors further alleged Madigan and McClain convinced ComEd to retain the law firm of Reyes Kurson because one of its partners, Victor Reyes, was “particularly valuable to Madigan’s political operation,” and ensured businessman Juan Ochoa would be appointed to ComEd’s board of directors at Madigan's urging, even as utility officials expressed concerns about the move.

ComEd execs had hoped to keep Madigan happy so he would back their efforts to pass two major pieces of legislation — Smart Grid in 2011 and the Future Energy Jobs Act, or FEJA, in 2016.

Both those bills helped to greatly improve ComEd’s financial viability.

“It’s hard to quantify exactly how important that was,” Scott Vogt, a high-ranking ComEd executive, testified about FEJA.

ComEd itself entered a deferred prosecution agreement with the government and agreed to pay a $200 million fine to resolve an investigation into its role in the bribery scheme.

AT&T Illinois Bribery

Prosecutors alleged that between 2017 and 2018, Madigan and McClain were also working with AT&T Illinois leadership to solicit bribes from the phone company. They allegedly did so by arranging for AT&T to indirectly pay ex-state Rep. Eddie Acevedo — another Madigan legislative ally — $22,500 over nine months though Acevedo did no actual work for the company.

Jurors saw emails from early 2017, when AT&T’s top legislative priority bill — carrier of last resort, or COLR, relief— was pending in the Illinois House. Until it received that relief, AT&T was required to provide landline service to any customer who requested it throughout Illinois.

In one email from Feb. 14, 2017, McClain asked an AT&T official whether there was “even a small contract” for Acevedo. Two days later, McClain told AT&T Illinois President Paul La Schiazza that Madigan had assigned him to work on the AT&T legislation as a “Special Project.”

On March 28, 2017, La Schiazza allegedly confirmed that AT&T had gotten the “GO order” to hire Acevedo — which prosecutors claimed was a directive from Madigan, given through McClain — and directed his employees to “move quickly to get this done.”

The jury heard from former AT&T Illinois contract lobbyist Tom Cullen, who testified about agreeing to be the intermediary for the company’s $2,500-per-month payments to Acevedo.

Though Acevedo was assigned to write a report on the political dynamics within the Latino caucuses of both the General Assembly and Chicago City Council, Cullen said it was understood by all parties that the assignment wasn’t real.

Acevedo was also called as a witness and insisted AT&T had issued him assignments, though he also said he suffers from dementia and has significant memory issues. He was charged in 2021 with tax evasion and eventually pleaded guilty to that charge.

Acevedo told jurors he would also report to external lobbyist Michael Lieteau and share information about Latino members of the General Assembly, whom he knew from his time as a House representative.

But Lieteau testified that he was no longer an AT&T employee by 2017 and that he had no supervisory authority over any work Acevedo had or hadn’t been assigned.

“Any work he was performing for AT&T, I was not aware (of),” Lieteau said.

Defense witness Steve Selcke, a retired AT&T Illinois lobbyist, said he was aware of Madigan’s standing as the most powerful legislator in the state and knew he had the power to stop bills in their path in the General Assembly.

So when they were asked to hire Acevedo, they agreed to do so in order to avoid any issues securing COLR relief. But he maintained that neither he nor any of his colleagues believed hiring Acevedo had any bearing on the passage of that bill, except to avoid “rocking the boat” with Madigan’s office.

AT&T Illinois entered into a deferred prosecution agreement and paid a $23 million fine to resolve the investigation into its misconduct.

The parking lot along Wentworth Avenue in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood in October 2024. (Andrew Adams / Capitol News Illinois)

Chinatown Parking Lot

This scheme dealt with Madigan’s alleged efforts to illegally steer business to his private property tax law firm, Madigan & Getzendanner, amid efforts to develop a state-owned parcel of land in Chinatown into a commercial property in 2018.

But to do so, 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.

While Madigan and McClain believed this could be done through a simple land transfer bill, they instead ran into numerous roadblocks and the effort ultimately failed.

The parking lot was located in Solis’ 25th Ward. He had indicated he could help Madigan’s law firm get business from the project developers should the land transfer go through.

Jurors viewed secretly recorded videos Solis made of in-person meetings with McClain and project developers. They also heard how 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.

Other state legislators also sought to get their hands on the property and jammed up the transfer efforts.

“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.

While testifying in court, Kimme referred to the entire episode as an “absolute disaster.”

“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.

A transcript of the June 23, 2017 conversation between Danny Solis and Michael Madigan. (U.S. Attorney's Office)

Union West

Once again, Madigan is accused in this scheme of attempting to illegally steer business to his private tax firm.

In a June 2017 call between Solis and Madigan about the developer of the Union West property in Chicago, Solis mentioned to Madigan, “I think they understand how this works, you know the quid pro quo.”

“Yeah, OK,” Madigan replied on the recording.

Prosecutors have alleged this response shows Madigan was happy to engage in a trade of public action for his own private gain.

During this conversation, Solis was carrying out directions from his FBI contacts to give Madigan the impression that the alderperson’s approval of necessary zoning changes was contingent on the developers hiring the speaker’s law firm.

But it wasn’t true. In a secret video recording Solis made of a meeting between himself and a Union West developer a week later, Solis pushed the idea of Madigan’s law firm handling property tax appeals for the project, but didn’t tie any zoning approval to that hiring. In fact, Solis referenced having already committed to approving the zoning changes and was only held up by waiting for the results of the West Loop development study.

Madigan testified that he had a “great deal of surprise and concern” when he heard Solis refer to any quid pro quo and set out to confront him in person and admonish him for suggesting such an agreement.

“I was trying to tell Mr. Solis that there was not going to be any quid pro quo involved with me,” Madigan testified. “I was not gonna connect a request for an introduction with anything else.”

Danny Solis Board Seat

In another alleged scheme involving the disgraced former alderperson, prosecutors claim that Madigan in 2018 agreed to help Solis find a position on a state board in exchange for Solis funneling tax work to Madigan’s private law firm.

Solis around that time had indicated he would be leaving public office, but his pending criminal charge and ongoing government cooperation was not yet public knowledge.

In one conversation recorded by Solis in June 2018, he spoke with Madigan about the potential for a state board seat before stating that he would “continue to get you legal business. I, I’ve got all kinds of stuff happening in the South Loop and in the West Loop.”

Later that year in August, Solis mentioned to Madigan a couple of board positions that were “generous in their compensation.” During that conversation, Solis told Madigan, ​​“I’ve helped you in the past, I’m gonna continue to help you,” before mentioning developers whom he could connect Madigan and his law firm to.

Madigan told Solis to “just leave this in my hands.” But testifying in court, Madigan denied that this discussion involved any sort of bribe.

He stressed that what he meant was that he was only considering putting Solis’ name in a larger file of recommendations to incoming Gov. J.B. Pritzker, but that he never promised Solis that he would get any board seat in exchange for tax work.

Madigan claimed it was Solis who was trying to connect the tax firm work and the board seat, while he was “just carrying along the conversation.”

Madigan testified he never did recommend Solis for any board seat because in early 2019, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Solis’ criminal activity and his cooperation as an undercover mole for federal investigators.

“It made me decide not to send the resume along to Gov. Pritzker,” Madigan said.

Capitol News Illinois contributed to this report.

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