Jury hears more wiretapped calls in former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan trial

ByMichelle Gallardo

Monday, November 4, 2024

Jury hears more wiretapped calls in Madigan trial

The public corruption trial of former Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan and co-defendant Michael McClain picked back up Monday.

CHICAGO (WLS) -- The public corruption trial of former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan and co-defendant Michael McClain picked back up Monday at the Dirksen Federal Building.

More wiretapped phone calls were played for the jury, including one in which the former speaker and McClain were heard discussing a plan to help an aide who had recently been fired amid sexual harassment allegations.

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The jury on Monday heard evidence that dipped in and out of various issues related to the racketeering indictment against both Madigan and McClain.

University of Illinois Chicago longtime political science professor and former Alderman Dick Simpson was on the stand Monday afternoon.

A series of wiretapped phone calls were played for the jury, in which they got to hear McClain as he set up a series of back-channel payments for Kevin Quinn, an ousted Madigan aide, who'd been fired months earlier after allegations of sexual harassment.

With the plan in place, a follow-up call was made to Madigan himself. The date was Aug. 29, 2018.

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"I've put four or five people together that are willing to contribute to, uh, help. I didn't know if you wanted to mention it to Marty, or you want to stay out of it?" McClain said.

"I think I ought to stay out of it. That's what I think," Madigan said, leaving it to McClain to inform Quinn's brother, then-13th Ward Alderman Marty Quinn, of the plan.

While the effort to help Kevin Quinn financially is not directly part of the corruption allegations against Madigan and McClain, the FBI raided his home 10 months later. Leading the raid was Supervisory Special Agent Prince Prempeh, who testified Monday to retrieving a series of documents that corroborate what was essentially a no-work contract for Quinn.

It was along that same vein that the government's next witness, ComEd executive Keisha Parker, took the stand. She testified to helping McClain, who was then an external lobbyist for the utility, to set up campaign fundraisers on behalf of Madigan and the Democratic Party of Illinois.

She also said she was part of setting up a contract for Ed Moody. Moody is one of the five men, all Madigan loyalists, identified by the U.S. Attorney's Office as being hired by ComEd through various subcontractors for little to no-work jobs allegedly worth over $1.3 million.

"I recall there not being enough funds in the government affairs budget," Parker said. "We had to work to secure additional funding, and we got information we would be covering from the CEO's budget."

Former Democratic Party of Illinois campaign worker Alaina Hampton was also expected to take the witness stand Monday, but will likely be pushed to Tuesday.

Tuesday will be a short day, as the jury will be allowed to come in at 11 a.m. to have time to vote.

The former Illinois House speaker is accused of a sophisticated bribery and racketeering scheme.

The trial could last three months.