Nearly two years after his indictment on federal racketeering charges, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is finally scheduled to appear in court Wednesday — on a video link, at least.
Madigan, the former leader of the state Democratic Party, has been told to appear virtually for a hearing before U.S. District Judge John Robert Blakey over whether his landmark trial should be postponed pending a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in a Chicago-area bribery case.
Blakey had originally ordered both Madigan and his co-defendant, longtime confidant Michael McClain, to appear in person, which would have marked the first time Madigan came to the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse to answer the charges since his indictment in March 2022.
But the judge allowed Madigan and McClain to attend the hearing by video conference after lawyers for McClain, who lives in downstate Quincy, said ongoing health issues would make travel difficult.
So far, Madigan has not uttered a word publicly in the case. His only appearance came by telephone at two different arraignments, and both times he was not asked to speak.
At issue Wednesday is whether the April 1 trial date should stand in light of the Supreme Court’s decision last month to take up the petition of James Snyder, the former mayor of Portage, Indiana convicted of taking bribes from a trucking company that had won contracts to supply garbage trucks to the town.
A decision from the high court overturning that conviction could resolve a split among federal circuits and would reverberate across a number of high profile public corruption cases in Chicago, where defense attorneys have long complained that prosecutors overreach when it comes to charging public officials under the federal bribery statute.
[ Supreme Court agrees to review former Portage Mayor James Snyder’s public corruption case ]
Soon after the Supreme Court’s announcement about the Snyder case in mid-December, defense attorneys in the “ComEd Four” case, where McClain and three others were convicted earlier this year in a scheme to bribe Madigan to help the utility’s legislative agenda in Springfield, filed motions to delay the sentencings that had been set for this month.
A similar motion was filed a week later in the separate racketeering indictment against Madigan and McClain, which is made up in large part of the same ComEd bribery allegations. Both have pleaded not guilty.
“Considering the monumental impact that the Snyder decision will have on this irrefutably complex case and the resulting prejudice to the defendants from denying a stay, the defendants respectfully request that the court stay the proceedings or reset the trial date to the fall,” Madigan’s legal team wrote in the filing.
In response on Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu noted that only a handful of the counts in the indictment stem from the bribery statute at issue with the high court, and that the public and parties for both sides have a vested interest in getting closure in the high-profile case.
“Granting extended delays such as the one sought here contributes to a general sense that the wheels of justice do not move swiftly enough,” Bhachu wrote.
Meanwhile, lawyers for Madigan’s former chief of staff, Tim Mapes, have also filed a motion to stay his Jan. 31 sentencing on perjury and attempted obstruction of justice charges. A jury convicted Mapes in August of lying to a federal grand jury two years ago in a failed attempt to protect his longtime boss from a widening political corruption investigation.
The feds have responded to this, calling Mapes’ effort a “frivolous litigation strategy in a desperate effort to stall his sentencing.”
The issue also briefly came up in the ongoing trial of former Chicago Ald. Edward Burke, who was convicted of racketeering conspiracy on Dec. 21, a case that included several counts under the federal bribery statute.
Snyder was convicted of accepting $13,000 from a company that had recently won contracts to sell the city garbage trucks. He was originally tried and convicted of one count of bribery and one tax-related offense in 2019, but successfully moved for a new trial on the bribery count. The jury convicted him again following a second trial in 2021.
The question in the case is whether the federal bribery statute criminalizes payments to public officials without a quid pro quo agreement under a section of the statute that bans “gratuities.”
That section has been used by federal prosecutors in Chicago to go after a number of politicians in recent years, including former Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
In Madigan’s case, Blakey has repeatedly said the April 1 trial date would not be moved, though this new development in a higher court could force his hand.