Opening statements expected in trial of ex-AT&T Illinois boss, accused of bribing Mike Madigan

CHICAGO -- Opening statements are set to begin Wednesday morning in the trial of former AT&T Illinois president Paul La Schiazza, who federal prosecutors allege bribed once-powerful Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan in exchange for favorable legislation in Springfield.

It's the last in a series of related trials that have played out in Chicago's Dirksen Federal Courthouse over the last 18 months leading up to Madigan's own bribery and racketeering trial, which is scheduled to begin Oct. 8. A jury last year convicted four former executives and lobbyists for electric utility Commonwealth Edison on charges that they bribed Madigan with jobs and contracts for his allies over a nine-year period to help the utility win its legislative battles.

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La Schiazza is accused of a similar scheme, albeit much smaller in scale. Instead of dozens of jobs and contracts for Madigan allies, AT&T's alleged bribery involved the utility funneling payments to one man: former Democratic state Rep. Eddie Acevedo, who was also a subcontractor lobbyist for ComEd for nearly a decade.

Acevedo, who allegedly did little to no work for either utility, already served a brief stint in prison for tax evasion connected to the larger federal probe of Madigan's world and is expected to testify in the former speaker's trial.

La Schiazza approved AT&T's retention of Acevedo in the spring of 2017, when the utility was making another run at crucial legislation that had failed twice. AT&T wanted out from under an Illinois law that mandated the telecom giant provide traditional landline service. The utility said it was costing millions of dollars to maintain an aging wire system and was preventing greater investment in more future-oriented technologies, like cellular and internet service.

AT&T got its win in July of that year, with the General Assembly overriding then-Gov. Bruce Rauner's veto of the legislation, which centered around a hike in 911 service fees included in the bill.

Less than a week later, La Schiazza received an email from Madigan's son Andrew requesting that he sponsor a nonprofit event, according to a filing from prosecutors this spring. In the email, Andrew Madigan said his request was "at the suggestion of our good friend Mike McClain," referring to the speaker's close confidant who'd helped to arrange Acevedo's lobbying contract earlier that year.

McClain, who in 2017 had recently retired from his decadeslong career as ComEd's top outside lobbyist, was convicted last year as part of the "ComEd Four" and is also Madigan's co-defendant in next month's racketeering trial. Prosecutors have relied heavily on McClain's own words in wiretapped phone calls, in which he describes himself as "an agent" of Madigan, both before and after officially retiring from lobbying.

La Schiazza forwarded Andrew Madigan's request to a colleague with the note "this will be endless."

"I suspect the 'thank you' opportunities will be plentiful," the colleague replied, which the feds contend was a reference to the landline legislation's passage.

"Yep ... we are on the friends and family plan now," La Schiazza quipped in his response.

Prosecutors claim that exchange, which is expected to be shown at trial, "demonstrates that defendant knew AT&T's responses to Madigan's requests played a role in their legislative success."

But La Schiazza claims the request from Andrew Madigan for the nonprofit event sponsorship is exactly the type of "gratuity" the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this summer ruled does not fall under the federal bribery statute.

Defendants in all the Madigan-related cases, including the already-convicted "ComEd Four," have sought to use the high court's decision to undermine the feds' charges, arguing the decision makes clear that bribery must involve a clear quid pro quo agreement before any "official acts."

SEE ALSO: Lawyers for ex-House Speaker Mike Madigan ask judge to exclude certain evidence from upcoming trial

But while the judge in the ComEd case is reviewing arguments for overturning those convictions, the judges overseeing both Madigan's and La Schiazza's cases have not yet been convinced by arguments to nix some of the feds' bribery charges. In La Schiazza's case, prosecutors point to emails in which high-ranking AT&T Illinois employees were discussing their strategy around retaining Acevedo in spring 2017.

According to the feds, La Schiazza said he had no objection to the plan to pay Acevedo $2,500 a month "as long as you are sure we will get credit and the box checked." An email sent by AT&T's legislative affairs director asked two utility executives if they were "100% certain" the utility would "would get credit from the powers that be," which the feds claim was a "veiled reference to Madigan."

"I would hope that as long as we explain the approach to McClain and (Acevedo) gets the money then the ultimate objective is reached," one of the executives wrote back, according to the feds.

But in reply, the legislative affairs director responded that "hope" was not enough for La Schiazza: "I don't think Paul wants this based on 'hope,'" the email said. "We need to confirm prior to executing this strategy."

According to prosecutors, McClain cooked up a cover story for Acevedo's hiring: the former representative was to prepare a report on "the political dynamics of the Latino Caucus of the General Assembly and the Chicago City Council." In a May filing, prosecutors said...(rest of sentence below)

the intermediary lobbyist who handled payments to Acevedo is expected to testify at trial that reasoning was completely made up "and merely gave AT&T cover if it ever had to explain why (Acevedo) was hired."

That lobbyist, Tom Cullen, was a longtime Madigan staffer whose name appeared on handwritten notes shown in last year's ComEd trial, which McClain had dubbed the "Magic Lobbying List" in an email printout seized by the feds during a raid of his home in 2019.

Cullen, who has not been charged with anything, also testified at last summer's trial of longtime Madigan chief of staff Tim Mapes, who was convicted of perjury and attempted obstruction of justice for lying to a grand jury about what he knew about Madigan and McClain's friendship.

According to the feds, Cullen is expected to testify that "there was never a real expectation that (Acevedo) would do any work for (Cullen) or for AT&T," and that he never "even asked for an assignment."

The jury, picked after hours of questioning Tuesday, ranges from recent college graduates to people in their 60s, who hold varied careers from nursing to manufacturing to professional opinion polling.

The judge overseeing the case struck several potential jurors, including a woman currently in a class action lawsuit against AT&T and a self-described "news junkie" who said she'd read a lot about the case.

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