Jury convicts Madigan’s longtime chief of staff on perjury, obstruction
of justice charges
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[August 25, 2023]
By HANNAH MEISEL
Capitol News Illinois
hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com
CHICAGO – A federal jury has convicted the once-top aide to former
Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, finding Tim Mapes guilty on
charges of perjury and attempted obstruction of justice for lying to a
grand jury investigating Madigan and his inner circle.
The jury of six men and six women reached its verdict in a little more
than five hours. Mapes, who spent more than 25 years as Madigan’s chief
of staff, sat stone-faced between his attorneys at the defense table
while Judge John Kness read the verdict Thursday afternoon.
As the basis for the perjury charge, prosecutors alleged Mapes lied in
response to seven questions in front of the grand jury and cited his
answers to 14 questions for the obstruction of justice charge. Though
the feds only had to prove Mapes lied in one of his answers for each
charge, the jury concluded he’d lied in all of them. The obstruction of
justice charge carries a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Judge Kness set Mapes’ sentencing date for Jan. 10, 2024. Quickly
afterward, Mapes exited the Dirksen Federal Courthouse flanked by his
lawyers and his older son, who had been in the courtroom each day of
trial. Members of the jury also declined to speak with reporters as they
left the courthouse in small groups Thursday afternoon.
In a statement late Thursday afternoon, Acting U.S. Attorney for the
Northern District of Illinois Morris Pasqual said Mapes’ conviction
“should stand as a clear message to witnesses” who are called to appear
in front of a grand jury.
In the nearly three weeks of trial, the jury heard the entire two-plus
hour recording of Mapes’ March 2021 grand jury testimony – proceedings
normally kept totally secret. They also listened to hours of wiretapped
calls that seemed to contradict what Mapes said in front of the grand
jury.
About six weeks before his grand jury testimony, Mapes sat for an FBI
interview in February 2021. During the trial, prosecutors hinted at the
fact that Mapes ended the interview after agents broached the subject of
Madigan and his close confidant Mike McClain. The FBI was interested in
whether McClain, a longtime influential lobbyist in Springfield with
whom Mapes also shared a friendship, acted as an “agent” of Madigan.
Shortly after Mapes’ FBI interview, he was subpoenaed for testimony in
front of the grand jury, but roughly 10 days later, asserted his Fifth
Amendment right against self-incrimination. In response, prosecutors
requested the court put Mapes under an immunity order, meaning that in
exchange for his truthful testimony, Mapes couldn’t be charged in the
investigation.
However, the immunity order also meant that if Mapes lied while under
oath, he could be charged. It was under those circumstances that Mapes
entered the grand jury room in late March of 2021, where during those
two hours of testimony, he was reminded three times of the stakes of
lying under oath.
“For whatever reason in his heart and his mind, (Mapes) chose loyalty
over the truth,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur said during
closing arguments Wednesday.
Prosecutors used evidence and witnesses to establish for the jury an
image of Mapes as both extremely meticulous and detail-oriented and
extremely loyal to Madigan – both things Mapes was known for during his
decades in Springfield.
In addition to serving as Madigan’s chief of staff, Mapes also worked
for 20 years as executive director of the Democratic Party of Illinois
under Madigan’s chairmanship, and for the last seven years of his
career, he was clerk of the Illinois House, keeping legislative session
days moving in the manner the speaker wanted.
But all that came to an end on June 6, 2018, when Mapes was forced to
resign from all three of his roles after being publicly accused of
sexual harassment and bullying.
Mapes’ attorney, Andrew Porter, sought to poke holes in the government’s
theory of motive during his closing arguments.
“Three years after (his forced resignation), why would Tim Mapes – who’s
been immunized – why would he fall on the sword for a guy who kicked him
to the curb three years before?” Porter asked the jury.
Sherri Garrett, the former Illinois House Clerk’s Office employee who
accused Mapes of harassment in 2018, issued a post-verdict statement
saying she hoped others who experienced the same “toxic work
environment” under Mapes “feel some relief today, as I know I do.”
[to top of second column]
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Tim Mapes, center, the former chief of
staff for longtime Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, exits the
Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago on Thursday, Aug. 24, after
being found guilty of obstruction of justice and perjury. (Capitol
News Illinois photo by Hannah Meisel)
“My experience speaking out about the sexual harassment I endured in
2018 was painful – and more painful was knowing that there were
countless others like me who were too afraid of Mr. Mapes to come
forward and speak their own truths,” she said in the statement.
The trial also revealed the ways in which Madigan’s inner circle –
including Mapes and McClain – strategized around sexual harassment
allegations that rocked the speaker’s world earlier in 2018, at the
height of the #MeToo movement. In February of that year, Alaina Hampton,
a campaign operative in Madigan’s political organization, publicly
accused the speaker of not doing enough in response to her complaints
that a married colleague had for months been sending her unwanted text
messages and making advances. After a nearly two-year legal battle,
Hampton settled with Madigan’s political organization in late 2019.
“I have always said that my experience was the symptom of a toxic
culture, and that it started at the top,” Hampton said in a statement.
“Tim Mapes was as close to the top as it gets.”
Republicans, who have for years painted Madigan as corrupt and too
powerful, used Thursday’s verdict to call on Democrats to enact various
laws under the umbrella of “ethics reform.”
State Senate GOP Leader John Curran, R-Downers Grove, said in a
statement he’d like to give local state’s attorneys “the same
investigative tools that Federal Authorities possess.” A spokesperson
clarified Curran wants state’s attorneys to be able to utilize wiretap
authority with judicial oversight for public corruption investigations.
Additionally, Curran supports allowing the Illinois Attorney General to
convene a statewide grand jury to investigate public corruption. Various
states have given those powers to their attorneys general and local
prosecutors.
House Minority Leader Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, called on Madigan’s
successor, House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, to act on
ethics-related bills proposed by GOP members this spring.
“It would be appalling if Speaker Welch did not move forward legislation
House Republicans have filed to address ethics and instill public trust
in our government,” McCombie said.
Welch’s office fired back in its own statement, citing the leadership
changes made under his speakership in the last two and a half years, and
pointing to ethics-related laws passed by the General Assembly in 2021
and this spring.
“Speaker Welch has always said he believes in due process, and a guilty
verdict is a signal the law is working,” Welch spokesperson Jaclyn
Driscoll said. “However, if the minority leader has any ideas on how to
strengthen federal perjury laws, we’re all ears.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia Schwartz said during her closing arguments
that Mapes had the opportunity to be a “star witness” in the
government’s cases against Madigan and McClain. But Mapes’ attorneys
balked at that assertion, casting the specific questions and answers for
which Mapes was indicted as having to do with benign subjects that were
“immaterial” to the grand jury’s criminal investigation.
At the time of Mapes’ grand jury interview, McClain had already been
indicted on bribery charges for his role in a purported yearslong scheme
involving his biggest and longest-running client, electric utility
Commonwealth Edison. In May, McClain – along with two other ex-ComEd
lobbyists and the utility’s former CEO – were convicted for their roles
in a purported bribery scheme, through which Madigan allies were given
jobs and contracts with ComEd in exchange for favorable legislation in
Springfield.
And even without Mapes’ cooperation, the feds managed to hit Madigan and
McClain with bribery and racketeering charges last year. The March 2022
indictment – which was followed up by a smaller superseding indictment
in October – alleges the two were instrumental in creating and running a
criminal “enterprise” with Madigan in the center, benefitting from his
positions of power in politics, state government and even his
partnership in a real estate law firm. That trial is scheduled for April
2024.
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