Madigan’s high-powered appeals team urges 7th Circuit to overturn speaker’s conviction

CHICAGO — As former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan approaches six months in a West Virginia federal prison, the high-profile legal team he hired to handle his appeal made long-awaited arguments Thursday, urging the longtime Democratic power broker’s conviction on bribery and other corruption charges be overturned.

Arguing to a 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals panel, lawyer Amy Saharia said federal prosecutors’ core legal theory — that Madigan and electric utility Commonwealth Edison were engaged in a reciprocal “quid pro quo” bribery relationship for eight years beginning in 2011 — was fundamentally flawed.

“The alleged ‘quo’ … is far too vague,” Saharia told the appellate judges.

Government attorneys had told the jury repeatedly during Madigan’s four-month trial that ended last year that Madigan enjoyed a “stream of benefits” from ComEd, namely the hiring of the speaker’s political allies, in exchange for his “official action” on ComEd’s behalf in Springfield.

But Saharia drilled down on what defense lawyers argued just as often in the course of the trial: That despite hundreds of hours of wiretapped phone calls, hundreds of other pieces of evidence and testimony from dozens of witnesses, prosecutors never produced evidence of a quid pro quo agreement.

Additionally, evidence and testimony often pointed to Madigan blocking ComEd’s legislative agenda in Springfield, with his deputies whittling down the company’s demands over months of negotiations prior to approval of major energy-related legislation in 2011, 2013 and 2016.

Saharia also reminded the 7^th Circuit panel that prosecutors’ theory of the “alleged benefits” prosecutors said Madigan enjoyed were “far outside the typical … bribery case.”

“Speaker Madigan did not take cash from ComEd, he did not take Rolex watches, trips to Vegas, all the things you typically see in bribery cases,” she said.

While prosecutors told the jury that was evidence of Madigan’s sophistication as a participant in bribery, Saharia tried to paint it as the government grasping for straws. But 7th Circuit Judge Nancy Maldonado, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, interrupted Saharia’s argument that making job recommendations is something “that politicians do every day.”

“But these weren’t just job recommendations — you do acknowledge that, correct?” Maldonado asked, referring to the fact that five of Madigan’s close political allies received no-work contracts totaling $1.3 million in payments over eight years.

Saharia did acknowledge the contractors who received monthly checks for $4,000 to $5,000, but quickly pivoted to others that ComEd hired after a recommendation from Madigan who did perform actual work for the utility.

“It’s not even clear exactly what the government thinks he agreed to in 2011,” she said, referring to when the General Assembly passed legislation that changed how electric rates were set in Springfield, which ended up being a boon to ComEd.

It’s also the year the utility approved the first no-work contract with a Madigan ally, former Chicago Ald. Frank Olivo of the speaker’s native 13^th Ward on the city’s Southwest Side. Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia Schwartz also pointed out Thursday that ComEd finalized a contract with a law firm led by Madigan-allied fundraiser Victor Reyes “just one day before the final vote” on the key legislation.

Schwartz, who was part of the prosecution team that investigated Madigan and brought him to trial, told the 7th Circuit panel that the dual hirings in 2011 and ComEd’s subsequent legislative success in Springfield “showed that from the outset, these were linked.” Also present in the courtroom Thursday was former Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu, who led the decade-long investigation into Madigan and his inner circle and the subsequent prosecutions and trials.

Particularly during closing arguments, Bhachu, Schwartz and their colleagues pushed the jury to find Madigan guilty of bribery because he should have understood that he was “accepting a thing of value” from those with corrupt intent. But the former speaker’s appellate team has taken up the torch from his original defense attorneys that Madigan’s intent should matter more.

Saharia argued that jury instructions incorrectly put the focus on the bribe-giver’s intent and incorrectly defined the term ‘corruptly.’”

Judge Michael Scudder, who was nominated to the 7th Circuit in President Donald Trump’s first term, asked Schwartz about both. But the prosecutor defended both her colleagues’ arguments and the jury instructions.

“There was simply no way this jury could’ve convicted lawful, innocent conduct,” she said.

Judge Frank Easterbrook, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan who has gained a reputation for interjecting with questions during oral arguments, stayed uncharacteristically silent on Thursday.

A decision in the case will be published in the coming months, along with one from another 7^th Circuit panel set to hear arguments in a related case on Tuesday. In that case, attorneys for longtime Springfield lobbyist and Madigan confidant Mike McClain and former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore will argue for the overturning of their convictions related to bribing the powerful speaker.

While Madigan was 600 miles east of his native Chicago during Thursday’s arguments, daughters Nicole and former Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan were present in the courtroom, along with the former speaker’s longtime law partner Vincent “Bud” Getzendanner, who testified during trial.

The jury acquitted or deadlocked on nearly all the counts related to allegations that Madigan agreed to perform “official action” in exchange for bribes in the form of business for his and Getzendanner’s property tax appeals firm. But he was convicted on wire fraud and Travel Act violation counts related to the alleged scheme to help get then-Chicago Ald. Danny Solis appointed to a state board in exchange for introductions to high-powered real estate developers.

Little did Madigan know that Solis was an FBI informant. As laid out in trial, Madigan never ended up recommending Solis to newly elected Gov. JB Pritzker, but Schwartz on Thursday used the relationship between the men as an illustration of Madigan’s “corrupt intent” to gain “private business for himself and for his son.”

But Saharia rebutted Schwartz’s argument that the proof of Madigan’s intent was captured on hidden camera as he and Solis talked about both the state board seat and property development in the same conversations.

“Well, of course, they occurred in the same conversation because Mr. Solis was a government cooperator,” she said. “He was instructed to juxtapose those two things in the same conversations.”

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

Hannah Meisel

Hannah has been covering Illinois government and politics since 2014, and since then has worked for a variety of outlets from NPR affiliate stations to a startup newsletter. She’s a graduate of both the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the U of I’s Springfield campus, where she received an M.A. through the Public Affairs Reporting program and got her start reporting in the Capitol.