Judge Rejects Michael Madigan’s Motion for Acquittal as Ex-Speaker’s Corruption Case Heads Toward Sentencing This Week


Video: The WTTW News Spotlight Politics team on Michael Madigan’s upcoming sentencing hearing and more of the day’s top stories. (Produced by Paul Caine)


Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan on Monday afternoon strolled into a 12th-floor courtroom at the Dirksen Federal Building in downtown Chicago — the same place where four months earlier a federal jury found him guilty following his landmark corruption trial.

Madigan on Monday returned to the courthouse where a jury of eight women and four men convicted him in February on charges of bribery, conspiracy and wire fraud. The hearing comes just days before Madigan is set to be sentenced in that case — prosecutors are seeking a 12.5-year prison term; the defense has asked for probation.

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During that brief hearing, U.S. District Judge John Blakey rejected Madigan’s motion for acquittal or a new trial, setting the stage for Madigan’s sentencing to go ahead Friday.

The longtime speaker, who for decades acted as the most powerful politician in Illinois, breezed into court carrying an umbrella and sat silently at the defense table throughout the hearing.

Madigan was convicted on 10 counts in total, relating to his efforts to secure a valuable state board position for disgraced former Chicago Ald. Danny Solis and to the most wide-ranging of the alleged bribery schemes outlined by the government involving utility giant Commonwealth Edison.

Prosecutors have argued those crimes are the “antithesis of what a public official should do on behalf of the citizens he serves.”

“Yet, as Madigan would have it, the Court should grant him great leniency based on past good acts and effectively ignore the serious crimes for which he was convicted,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarah Streicker wrote in a recent court filing.

Madigan’s defense team, however, called the prosecution’s 12.5-year prison recommendation a “draconian” sentence that would condemn Madigan, 83, to “to die behind bars for crimes that enriched him not one penny.”

“They demand that Mike Madigan spend his final years in a cell, though he spent decades as the consumers’ shield against ComEd’s predations,” Madigan’s attorneys Dan Collins and Tom Breen wrote in their own filing.

Madigan and his codefendant and longtime confidant Michael McClain were accused of arranging subcontractor jobs for several of the former speaker’s associates with Commonwealth Edison, which paid them $1.3 million even as they did little or no actual work for the utility giant.

ComEd execs allegedly hired the “ghost” workers in order to win over Madigan’s support on critical energy legislation in Springfield. The jury failed to convict McClain on any charge in this case, but he and three other utility officials were previously convicted of conspiring to bribe the former speaker in the 2023 “ComEd Four” trial.

Madigan, who testified at trial in his own defense, told jurors he hadn’t trusted ComEd and claimed he stood up to the utility giant, forcing it to add in additional consumer protections that were in the best interests of Illinois residents.

Madigan was also accused of seeking to illegally steer business to his private property tax law firm in exchange for official action.

Prosecutors have argued that Madigan’s “greed is even more appalling” given the success of his private law firm — which they claim he didn’t even need given that he’s amassed a personal fortune topping $40 million.

“Yet, Madigan was willing to trade his and Solis’s office to obtain a State board position for Solis — who had suggested a quid pro quo to Madigan on multiple occasions — in exchange for more legal business for Madigan’s law firm,” Streicker wrote. “Madigan put his desire for profit ahead of what was best for Illinois.”

Madigan’s legal team are seeking to have any mention of the speaker’s net worth stricken from public filings, claiming prosecutors offered “zero evidence—absolutely nothing—to justify broadcasting specific details about his net worth.”

“The government’s decision to splash his personal financial information across a public filing represents a gross breach of the rules,” Collins and Breen wrote.

Blakey did not immediately rule on that defense request and the parties are scheduled to return to court Tuesday to argue additional motions ahead of sentencing.

Note: This article was published June 9, 2025, and updated with video June 10, 2025.


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