The former Illinois speaker, Madigan, declared guilty of corruption

The former Democratic President of the House of Representatives, Michael Madigan, the oldest legislative leader in the history of the United States, has joined the list of Illinois political figures that have been convicted of public corruption positions after a Federal Jury found him guilty in 10 of 23 positions.

But the jury, which deliberated for approximately 65 hours for two weeks after a marathon three months of evidence and testimony, was divided into its verdict. They left the former speaker for seven other positions and finally stagnated in six positions.

Madigan’s coacusado, Springfield’s veteran Cabildo, Mike McClain, walked free after the jury was blocked in the same positions. The prosecutors alleged the former speaker McClain, his close friend who dates back to the 1970s when they were young legislators in the house of Illinois, directed a “criminal company” aimed at preserving and improving the political power of Madigan, in addition to enriching them and his allies.

But the jury did not respond a verdict in the position of general extortion against the two men. “My head is turning,” McClain told journalists in the lobby of the Federal Court of Dirksen on Wednesday morning.

Madigan left the court 20 minutes before, declining comment to Chicago Tribune The journalist Ray Long, who had published a book about the former speaker in 2022, but shown his hand and smiled before climbing to the elevator to the lobby. Madigan continued to ignore journalists while he, his lawyers and two of his daughters crossed the street from the court in the snow that falls.

While the deputy of the court read the jury verdict on Wednesday morning, the 82 -year – District of the United States, John Blaokey, the same place where it has passed almost every day of the early week since the week before the week. October when the jury selection began for trial.

McClain had no emotions, while the verdict was read, but seemed to get excited after the members of his family put themselves with tears when it became clear that the jury had been blocked in the specific McClain counts.

The jury’s decision has been produced four years since Madigan moved away mainly from politics, after being forced to renounce his speaker’s curse in the midst of the growing pressure of his own Caucus of the Democratic Chamber in January 2021 as a Federal criminal investigation into his intimate circle approached. In the weeks that followed their degradation to a mere state representative, the former speaker resigned from the legislative seat he had held for five decades and since his position as president of the State Democratic Party.

Even after Madigan withdrew from public life, a large jury took a large jury to accuse him of 22 positions, later increased to 23, of organized crime, bribery, extortion and wire fraud, claiming that he requested and accepted bribes so much to benefit it politically politically and personally.

Unlike the defendants, a jury agreed to speak with journalists outside the Palace of Justice when Madigan and his group passed. The jury, who refused to give his name, said he was surprised to know that McClain had been sentenced in 2023 in a trial with much of the same evidence as the one that ended on Wednesday.

He said his jury companions fought for some positions, such as the general extortion burden. But he cited a count as clear: an accusation that Madigan participated in a bribe conspiracy to obtain five of his allies without work with the Commonwealth Edison electricity company. The prosecutors alleged that the contracts were bribes to Madigan to grease the wheels for the legislation that the utility supported in Springfield.

“That was absolutely there,” said the jury about the evidence of the government that Madigan was aware of the contracts without work, despite his statements that he did not know about them.

But the jury was blocked in a similar bribery position in which Mígan and McClain had supposedly organized a similar scheme with AT&T Illinois.

Speaking to journalists an hour after the verdict was delivered, Morris Pasquale, the American prosecutor’s office in the Northern District of Illinois, said that there had not yet a decision on whether they tried to try Madigan about the positions on which The jury had died.

Even so, he framed the decision divided as a victory.

“The bribe, either the outdated cash in an envelope or the most refined version practiced by Madigan, remains illegal, is still corrupt and is still against the law, and still undermines public confidence in the government,” he said . “Public officials can choose to violate public trust and must be responsible.”

This article was published by Capitol News Illinois. Read the original here.