Crime & Law
Michael Madigan Reports to Federal Prison, Beginning 7.5-Year Sentence After Landmark Corruption Convictions
Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan leaves the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago on Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025, flanked by two of his daughters after a jury delivered a partial verdict in his corruption trial. Jurors found Madigan guilty on 10 corruption counts but acquitted him on seven more. (Andrew Adams / Capitol News Illinois)
Michael Madigan — long the most powerful politician in Illinois during his decades as the state’s House speaker — reported to federal prison Monday, eight months after a jury in Chicago convicted him on numerous corruption charges.
Madigan, 83, began serving his 7.5-year prison term at a facility in Morgantown, West Virginia, days after an Illinois appellate court rejected his bid to remain free while he challenges the convictions from his landmark trial. Long known as the “velvet hammer,” Madigan will now be referred to as federal inmate 90368-509.
The longtime speaker was convicted on 10 counts in total, relating to his efforts to secure a valuable state board position for disgraced ex-Chicago Ald. Danny Solis and to the most wide-ranging of the alleged bribery schemes outlined by the government involving utility giant Commonwealth Edison.
In the most wide-ranging of those schemes, Madigan and his codefendant and longtime ally Michael McClain were accused of arranging subcontractor jobs for several of the former speaker’s associates with ComEd, which paid them $1.3 million even as they did little or no actual work.
ComEd execs allegedly hired the “ghost” workers in order to win over Madigan’s support on critical energy legislation in Springfield. McClain — who was tried alongside Madigan, but was not convicted in that case — and three other utility officials were previously found guilty of conspiring to bribe Madigan in the 2023 “ComEd Four” trial. McClain was sentenced this summer to two years in prison in that case.
At sentencing in June, U.S. District Judge John Blakey found that Madigan acted as the “central command post” of the bribery schemes, and repeatedly perjured himself while testifying at trial in an attempt to conceal his guilt and mislead the jury.
“It was a nauseating display … of perjury and evasion,” Blakey said at the time, calling Madigan’s testimony hard to watch at times. “You lied, sir. You lied. You did not have to.”
Blakey also rejected Madigan’s motion for acquittal or a new trial, though the speaker’s full appeal remains pending.
“I’m truly sorry for putting the people of the state of Illinois through this,” Madigan said at that June sentencing hearing. “I tried to do my best to serve the people of the state of Illinois. I am not perfect.”
