CHICAGO (CN) — Jurors on Wednesday returned a split verdict in the monthslong federal corruption trial of ex-Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan.
Jurors found Madigan guilty on 10 of the 23 corruption charges he faced and not guilty on seven counts. They did not return a verdict on his co-defendant and longtime ally Mike McClain.
The jury deadlocked on the six charges McClain shared with Madigan: an overarching racketeering conspiracy charge that ran throughout case's multiple "episodes," and additional fraud, bribery and racketeering counts.
Acting U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual said "no decision has been made" on whether prosecutors would try to retry Madigan or McClain over the jury's deadlock.
Presiding U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey, a Barack Obama appointee, in his own comments to attorneys prior to the verdict, said prosecutors could "let the dust settle" on the deadlocked counts before deciding if it's worth it to retry them.
"Maybe it isn't," the judge quipped.
It took over four months of trial proceedings to reach Wednesday's split verdict, with jury selection beginning early last October.
The jury received the case on the afternoon of Jan. 29, and deliberated about 64 hours before telling the court they had come to an impasse. Over the course of the trial, they heard from more than 60 witnesses — including Madigan himself — and were shown dozens of secretly recorded phone call and video clips.
The jury announced it had reached an impasse on 12 counts — six each for Madigan and McClain — on Wednesday morning. After discussion among the attorneys and Blakey, the court agreed the jurors could return a partial verdict despite not reaching consensus on those charges.
Pasqual nevertheless declared Madigan's conviction a victory.
"Michael Madigan, who stood at the very top of Illinois state government, stands convicted of ten counts of bribery and corruption. Corruption far reaching in scope, spanning a period of over eight years," Pasqual told press in the lobby of Chicago's Dirksen Federal Courthouse. "This is a historic conviction which ranks high in the annals of criminal cases tried in this courtroom."
The U.S. Attorney's Office of Northern Illinois has spent years prosecuting the former speaker, individuals in his orbit and others involved with Chicago's legacy of political patronage.
Madigan served as a representative in the Illinois House for 50 years before stepping down in 2021, and led it as speaker for 36 years. He also spent over two decades as chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party. Pasqual said Madigan abused the power and public trust afforded by his offices.
"Madigan exploited his public position, seeking and accepting bribes from ComEd in a scheme involving $1.3 million in no-show work, in order to put money in the pockets of Madigan's political allies, thereby strengthening Madigan's own personal political might," Pasqual said.
Federal prosecutors indicted him in March 2022 over conduct ranging between 2011 and 2019. A major portion of his indictment and subsequent trial dealt with energy company ComEd's admitted yearslong bribery scheme in the Illinois legislature.
Prosecutors said Madigan was at the heart of that scheme, supporting the company's legislative agenda between 2011 and 2019 in exchange for arranging jobs and contracts for his political allies, who received a collective $1.3 million from no-work ComEd subcontracts.
Among the ten counts on which jurors convicted Madigan, four related to the former speaker's involvement with ComEd — including the arrangement of the no-work subcontract gigs.
The jury acquitted Madigan on two counts related to ComEd, including the accusation that he pressured the company to take on politically-connected Illinois businessman Juan Ochoa for a board seat.
McClain, a former Democratic state representative and ComEd contract lobbyist, was heavily involved in the ComEd scandal — federal prosecutor Amarjeet Bhachu went so far as to call him Madigan's "bag man." He was one of the "ComEd Four," a quartet of former ComEd executives and lobbyists whom jurors convicted on separate corruption charges in May 2023.
Follow @djbyrnes1
