Mike Madigan, once Illinois' most influential powerbroker, now faces federal corruption trial

The FBI’s decadelong pursuit of one of the most dominant politicians in Illinois history led to bombshell indictments and shocking betrayals. It toppled the untouchable and changed the course of Chicago history.

But prosecutors still have one crucial task ahead of them: proving former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan guilty of a racketeering conspiracy.

That work finally begins Tuesday, in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge John Blakey, where the once-powerful Southwest Side Democrat is expected to face a jury of fellow Illinois residents whose lives have all been affected by Madigan — whether they know it or not.

The panel, set to be chosen over four days, could hear from as many as 50 witnesses over 10 weeks. But chief among them will be Danny Solis, the veteran City Council member who prosecutors have called one of Chicago’s “most significant cooperators in the last several decades.” Solis famously turned on Madigan and other powerful politicians in 2016 by wearing an FBI wire to avoid prison.

The Chicago Sun-Times exposed Solis after it obtained an erroneously unsealed affidavit in January 2019.

That revelation didn’t stop the feds’ blockbuster investigation from upending Chicago’s power structure. Roughly 20 people have faced federal charges in the years since. Nine of them were sentenced to prison, including ex-Ald. Edward M. Burke.

But it’s all been leading up to this: the trial of one of Illinois’ most influential politicians, who quietly wielded power in Springfield while developing a reputation as a reclusive political wizard, well-schooled in the playbook of the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley.

Madigan’s defense attorneys face a team of prosecutors who secured convictions against nearly every defendant they took to trial in 2023. The feds have struggled this year, though, especially since the U.S. Supreme Court in June limited their use of a key bribery law. Chicago’s last two federal corruption trials ended without convictions.

Facing trial alongside Madigan will be Michael McClain, Madigan’s longtime friend and confidant, who was among those convicted last year of scheming to bribe the speaker.

Madigan spent a record 36 years leading the Illinois House of Representatives, where he controlled legislation that shaped every facet of life across the state until he resigned in 2021.

The feds now say he led a criminal enterprise over nearly a decade, enhancing his political power and generating income for his allies and associates. McClain allegedly acted as an agent of the so-called “Madigan Enterprise,” making unlawful demands on the speaker’s behalf while trying to shield the speaker from criminal liability.

Some of the allegations have already been aired in court. Jurors in McClain’s earlier trial heard that five Madigan allies were paid $1.3 million by ComEd over eight years in a bid to influence Madigan. Another panel heard last month that one ally was paid an additional $22,500 by AT&T Illinois in a separate alleged scheme aimed at Madigan.

But the public has yet to get a glimpse of the evidence gathered against Madigan by Solis. Prosecutors say the work he’s done has been “truly extraordinary.”

Screaming ‘Bribery’

The feds seem ready to show all of their cards once the trial begins, including secret recordings of Madigan dating back to 2014. They could shine a light on the relationship Madigan cultivated with Solis, who represented the 25th Ward for more than 20 years.

Records show Solis would occasionally steer developers to the speaker “to garner political support from Madigan,” who controlled the Illinois Democratic Party for 23 years. Madigan allegedly then tried to take advantage of Solis’ position as the City Council’s powerful zoning chair to secure business for Madigan’s private tax law firm, Madigan & Getzendanner.

While Solis’ testimony will be crucial, a prosecutor recently predicted he will be “raked over the coals” on the witness stand. The FBI once accused Solis of receiving Viagra, prostitution services and campaign contributions in return for official acts.

He’s since been derided as the “Exhibit A” of Chicago corruption.

Now he’s set to be cross-examined by some of the top defense attorneys in town. Madigan’s legal team is led by Daniel Collins, Tom Breen and Todd Pugh. McClain’s is led by Patrick Cotter, John Mitchell and David Niemeier.

They wouldn’t comment for this article. But they’ve publicly mocked the feds’ case in the past.

Madigan’s team said prosecutors bought into a “false” Republican media campaign from the era of ex-Gov. Bruce Rauner. They acknowledge that Madigan helped people find jobs with private employers, including with two of the state’s largest utilities, while they had bills pending in Springfield. But, the attorneys argued, that’s not a crime.

“Missing from the government’s investigation … was any evidence that these private employers’ hiring decisions had any effect whatsoever on what Madigan did or did not do as it related to these pieces of legislation,” the defense attorneys said. “Even where Madigan literally did nothing — not even vote on a bill — the government screamed bribery because, as Speaker, Madigan could have chosen not to call the bill.”

McClain’s lawyers have separately predicted that Madigan’s team will turn on McClain in the courtroom, despite the notorious and lengthy friendship between the two.

They said jurors could be left to decide “which of the two defense theories they believe to be stronger, instead of deciding whether the government has proven its case.”

McClain’s attorneys redacted the details of Madigan’s apparent defense from court filings.

Five schemes

The drama will play out in the most significant public corruption case to hit the Dirksen Federal Courthouse since the trials of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, even overshadowing last year’s related trials of McClain, Burke and others.

The feds’ wins last year gave them momentum. But they seemed to lose their stride in December, when the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear an appeal in a separate case that involved a bribery law crucial to Madigan’s. The high court ultimately ruled that the statute in question criminalized bribery, but not after-the-fact rewards known as “gratuities.”

Since then, corruption trials in Chicago have not gone the feds’ way.

Jurors in August acquitted an Indiana businessman accused by the feds of bribing employees of the Cook County assessor’s office. And in September, a jury failed to reach a verdict in the trial of ex-AT&T Illinois President Paul La Schiazza, who was accused of bribing Madigan.

Madigan, 82, could face significant prison time if jurors convict him. However, even that expectation has been tempered by another recent setback for prosecutors: the two-year sentence handed this summer to Burke, 80, by U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall.

Any such decision in Madigan’s case would be up to Blakey, a former prosecutor nominated to the bench in 2014 by President Barack Obama. Blakey’s father famously wrote the racketeering law being used to prosecute Madigan, and Blakey’s well-versed in it himself.

The indictment accuses Madigan of five schemes. He’s accused in two of accepting bribes in the form of jobs, contracts and payments for close allies — as alleged in the earlier ComEd and AT&T bribery trials. But in three others, he’s accused of strong-arming developers into hiring Madigan & Getzendanner.

The details in the second category echo the conduct that put Burke in prison — the intermingling of personal and political business. In fact, both men wound up chasing profits from the company that renovated Chicago’s Old Post Office, records show.

Meanwhile, the feds say, the two powerful politicians shared a common confidant: Solis.

Madigan and Solis

Madigan and Solis had each been in office for decades by the time Madigan’s three alleged law-firm schemes began in 2017. They involved an apartment project in Solis’ ward at Sangamon Street and Washington Boulevard, a Chinatown parking lot at Cermak Road and Wentworth Avenue, and the Old Post Office that sits over the Eisenhower Expressway.

Madigan reached out to Solis about the apartment project on June 12, 2017, prosecutors say. He told Solis he’d like to get to know its developers, who had been trying to secure approvals from City Hall.

Solis said he’d try to introduce them. A little more than a week later, Solis assured Madigan, “I think they understand how this works.

“You know, the quid pro quo, the quid pro quo,” Solis said. “I just wanted to let you know that I did that, and I’ll follow up with you.”

Madigan replied, “very good.”

Though Madigan’s words were brief, the feds say the call amounts to “devastating evidence.” That’s because Madigan’s reaction shows he meant to personally benefit by leveraging Solis’ City Council position, according to the feds.

The men met with the developers at Madigan’s law office in July 2017. The feds say Madigan then cautioned Solis, unprompted, about his earlier “quid pro quo” remark.

“You shouldn’t be talking like that,” Madigan said.

“You’re just recommending our law firm,” Madigan told Solis. “Because if they don’t get a good result on their real estate taxes, the whole project will be in trouble. Which is not good for your ward.”

During that same meeting, Solis brought up another piece of property that had been eyed by developers in the past — the Chinatown parking lot. Madigan had been recorded discussing it in 2014, before Solis began working with the FBI.

The Sun-Times first wrote about the scheme in 2019. Developers wanted to put a hotel on the state-owned property. But before anything could happen, the state had to transfer the property either to the city or the developers.

‘Talk to a man named Mike McClain’

Madigan decided to try to distance himself from that effort, records show. By then, he was deep in a yearslong feud with Rauner, the Republican governor at the time.

Madigan allegedly called Solis in September 2017 and told him to have the developers “talk to a man named Mike McClain.”

The men also enlisted the help of Nancy Kimme, a lobbyist who once worked as chief of staff to the late Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, another Republican. That put Kimme in a better position to work with the Rauner administration.

Discussions with the developers continued into late 2017. Before a December meeting, Solis and McClain had a conversation of their own at City Hall. Solis told McClain that, “in the past, um, uh, I have been able, uh, to steer some work to, to Mike [Madigan]. And these guys will do, do the same thing.”

McClain didn’t respond to the comment one way or another, according to the feds.

But during that same conversation, McClain explained to Solis how Madigan tried to avoid scrutiny.

“He does surrogates,” McClain said. “A guy like me, he sends to go talk.”

Months went by. Then, during a March 2018 discussion about the Chinatown property, Solis told Madigan, “I can be discreet. Those developers will work with you the way that this guy has and get you the property taxes.”

Madigan told him, “Yeah, sure. Thank you,” records show.

Opposition from other legislators, and from Chinatown business owners, stalled any vote on the land transfer. Meanwhile, prosecutors say the final law-firm scheme began on June 20, 2018. That’s when Solis confided in Madigan that Solis planned to leave the City Council soon.

“I want to stay in some shape or form with, um, in, in, in government,” Solis told the speaker. “And one of the ideas I had is maybe a, um, a board position on the state level.”

Specifically, prosecutors say Solis sought a state board seat paying at least $93,000 a year.

Madigan promised to “take a note down” and put it in a file. But Solis immediately added, “and I’ll continue to get you legal business,” records show. “I, I’ve got all kinds of stuff happening in the South Loop and in the West Loop.”

Prosecutors say Madigan replied, “I never knew that that section was in your ward.” Later on, Madigan also mentioned that he’d been trying to get in touch with the developer of the Old Post Office, Harry Skydell.

By then, Solis had already made some of the most significant recordings that would later be used to convict Burke of trying to squeeze business out of Skydell.

“I can bring you him,” Solis told Madigan, “but you know, who’s been, um, actually, is Burke has been, I, I’ve connected him to him, but he didn’t give him the work for the post office. … I can bring him to you too.”

Solis and Madigan continued to talk over the next few months, mixing conversations about the state board seat with Madigan’s continued interest in meeting Skydell. Eventually, Skydell sat down with the two politicians on Sept. 4, 2018. Skydell said he’d be happy to start a business relationship with Madigan’s firm, records show.

On Nov. 23, 2018, Solis told Madigan about upcoming development projects and said, “I figure I can still help you a lot. … I’m committed for that.” Madigan allegedly responded, “OK, thank you. Thank you. … Do you want to go forward now on one of those state appointments?”

A week later, Solis confirmed for Madigan that he was particularly interested in a seat on the Illinois Commerce Commission or the Labor Commission.

Madigan wound up landing business from the apartment developers, records show. But efforts revolving around the Chinatown parking lot and Solis’ bid for a state board seat ended in January 2019.

That’s when Chicago learned Solis was a government mole.