Crime & Law

Ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan Files Appeal Challenging Landmark Corruption Convictions

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is officially challenging his landmark corruption convictions that are slated to land him in prison for more than seven years.

In an expected move, Madigan on Wednesday filed his notice of appeal to the Seventh Circuit Court after he was convicted in February on 10 felony charges including bribery and wire fraud.

While he’s scheduled to begin serving a 7.5-year prison sentence in October, the former speaker this month had already asked to remain free while he challenges those convictions.

Madigan was tried alongside his longtime ally and confidant Michael McClain on charges alleging they orchestrated five separate corruption schemes, wielding the speaker’s immense political power to reward loyal allies and enrich himself.

Madigan was ultimately convicted on charges relating to two of those schemes, which centered on his efforts to secure a valuable state board position for disgraced former Chicago Ald. Danny Solis, and his bribery efforts involving utility giant Commonwealth Edison.

In the most wide-ranging of those schemes, Madigan and 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 essentially no real work for the company.

ComEd execs allegedly hired the “ghost” workers in order to win over Madigan’s support on critical energy legislation in Springfield.

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 last month also rejected Madigan’s motion for acquittal or a new trial.

While Madigan was found guilty on several counts following the four-month trial, the jury also failed to convict him on 13 other charges and deadlocked on the six charges that McClain faced.

But McClain — a former Illinois representative and longtime lobbyist for Commonwealth Edison — was previously found guilty in the 2023 “ComEd Four” trial in which he and three other utility officials were convicted of conspiring to bribe Madigan.

He is scheduled to be sentenced in that case Thursday.

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