(The Center Square) – With jury selection expected to wrap up Monday in the corruption trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, prosecutors and defense attorneys are preparing to lay out their cases.
Judge John Robert Blakey targeted opening statements for Monday afternoon if two alternate jurors are selected Monday morning. The 12-member jury and four alternates were seated by the end of Thursday’s proceedings. The court was not in session on Friday.
Madigan and co-defendant Michael McClain are facing 23 federal counts of bribery, racketeering and official misconduct. Prosecutors alleged a nearly decade long scheme they called “Madigan Enterprise” where they secured little- to no-work jobs for associates in exchange for legislation favorable to utility Commonwealth Edison.
A lone protester walked behind Madigan as he entered the courthouse on Thursday morning. The protester carried a sign that appeared to have the word “shame” painted on it.
St. Xavier University Professor David Parker told The Center Square that prosecutors will introduce evidence which dates back 10 years.
“I mean there’s stuff going back, recordings of Madigan dating back to 2014. You just can’t un-hear that stuff. It’s hard to cross-examine. Defense is going to have a hard time cross-examining, you know, recordings,” Parker explained.
Parker said Madigan’s attorneys will insist that their client’s actions did not involve bribery or corruption.
“Defense is going to say, ‘This is just politics as normal. Madigan was doing nothing wrong, hooking people up,’” Parker said.
Parker said Madigan argued early on that there is a difference between quid pro quo, or something for something, versus a gratuity or a way of saying, “Thank you.”
“He was saying, ‘This is just business as usual. I was just doing favors for friends and ComEd and everybody else,’” Parker noted.
Parker said prosecutors will counter that argument with evidence.
“Something that could be damning is, at one time, I think Madigan was recorded as saying (that) these people had sweetheart jobs and they were getting paid a lot of money for doing basically very, very little work,” Parker said.
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch announced a federal jury’s indictment of Madigan on March 2, 2022. At that time, Lausch said the indictment accused Madigan of leading a criminal enterprise for nearly a decade.
Madigan’s co-defendant, Michael McClain, is a former state representative, lobbyist and longtime Madigan associate.
McClain and three other people were convicted last year in the ComEd Four trial, which involved a conspiracy to bribe Madigan with $1.3 million in no-show jobs, contracts and payments to associates in exchange for support with legislation that would benefit the utility company’s bottom line. Sentencing is still pending in the ComEd Four case.
United States of America v. Madigan et al is expected to last eleven weeks at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago.
Brett Rowland contributed to this story.
