There’s no disputing the power that Michael J. Madigan once wielded in Springfield — it apparently offended even the man who is now on trial for having bribed him in 2017.
“King Madigan lives — elected to Speaker again,” AT&T Illinois President Paul La Schiazza griped in a January 2017 email chain with his colleagues, reacting to a Chicago Sun-Times article about the Southwest Side Democrat’s ongoing grip on the gavel.
Years earlier, La Schiazza also wrote that Madigan “can not lose, the system is rigged as everyone in the system is beholden to the Speaker.”
Now La Schiazza is accused of bribing Madigan by hiring a Madigan ally in order to get crucial legislation passed. Though La Schiazza’s attorneys don’t dispute Madigan’s influence, prosecutors still hammered the point home to jurors as the trial began in earnest Wednesday.
“Madigan exercised enormous control over Illinois politics and policy,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Mower said in his opening statement. “And that power was no secret, including to the defendant.”
La Schiazza’s defense attorney, Jack Dodds, didn’t disagree. But he countered that his client was in the business of lobbying, and it was La Schiazza’s job to build relationships and maintain goodwill — and to take job recommendations from public officials seriously.
That’s what he did when a request arrived for a “small contract” for ex-state Rep. Edward “Eddie” Acevedo, Dodds said.
La Schiazza and AT&T Illinois agreed to pay Acevedo $22,500 through a third party in 2017, amid an effort to pass legislation purportedly worth millions to the utility. It did so at the request of Michael McClain, who was widely known as Madigan’s right-hand man.
AT&T Illinois was charged separately in 2022 and agreed to pay a $23 million fine. Acevedo has already gone to prison for tax evasion.
While little of what happened is in dispute, Dodds told jurors Wednesday they would see no proof of an explicit exchange — Acevedo’s money for passage of the legislation. Nor would the jury see proof that La Schiazza knew “he was doing something wrong,” Dodds said.
Mower said La Schiazza urged his team to hire Acevedo even though Acevedo was “disagreeable, drank too much, talked too much, and was generally despised by Republicans in Springfield.”
AT&T Illinois made the payments to Acevedo through a firm belonging to lobbyist Tom Cullen. Though Mower said that concealed the deal “entirely,” Dodds said it was all about Acevedo’s bad reputation — “they were trying not to rock the boat with the GOP.”
La Schiazza’s trial is the last in a series set to play out before Madigan goes on trial Oct. 8 for charges that include the alleged scheme involving AT&T Illinois. At least two panels of jurors heard similar testimony last year about Madigan’s power.
U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman, prosecutors and defense attorneys selected nine women and six men Tuesday to hear the case against La Schiazza. Three undisclosed members of the panel are alternates.
When the trial resumes Thursday, jurors are expected to hear from Stephen Selcke, a former AT&T Illinois lobbyist who is expected to testify pursuant to an immunity deal.
Mower told the jury in opening statements that the payments to Acevedo were made “all at Madigan’s request.” But prosecutors then introduced the jury to McClain through the testimony of former state Reps. Scott Drury and Greg Harris.
McClain was convicted in May 2023, along with three other former ComEd officials and lobbyists, for a similar scheme involving the electric utility. He also faces trial with Madigan in October. Prosecutors have told multiple panels of jurors that he acted as Madigan’s emissary.
Drury told jurors that he met McClain during Drury’s first term when McClain came into his office and explained that “he was very close with the speaker.” Harris also testified that McClain would purport to carry messages for the speaker — though Harris said he didn’t always know if that was true.
Both former lawmakers discussed the vast control Madigan exercised in Springfield. But Tinos Diamantatos, another La Schiazza lawyer, used his cross-examinations to note that Illinois’ system of government is not unique, that Madigan routinely faced re-election like any other lawmaker, and “voters can certainly vote someone out.”
Meanwhile, prosecutors have said McClain would use code words such as “our friend” when referring to Madigan, rather than use the speaker’s name. But Wednesday, they said it was La Schiazza who began to avoid name-dropping Madigan as the scheme neared its climax. In one email from April 2017, they say La Schiazza referred to Madigan only as “the other party.”
“The defendant went from denouncing ‘King Madigan’ to instead referencing ‘the other party,’” Mower said.