A jury found Chicago’s “Velvet Hammer”, the longest-serving legislative leader in US history, guilty of some corruption charges in a partial verdict returned on Wednesday after 11 days of deliberation.
Mike Madigan, who was Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives for nearly four decades, was convicted on 10 counts of prosecutors’ 23-count indictment, including bribery conspiracy, bribery and wire fraud. He was cleared on seven counts, including attempted extortion and using a facility to promote unlawful activity.
Jurors were unable to reach a verdict on the remaining six counts, including racketeering conspiracy, which accused Madigan of running a “criminal enterprise”.
Madigan’s trial, which lasted four months, was the culmination of a decade-long investigation into Illinois politics that previously netted convictions of a Chicago City Council member and the chief executive of a public utility.
Prosecutors’ case relied on recordings made of Madigan by former Chicago City Council member Danny Solis, who agreed to wear a wire after investigators confronted him with his own wrongdoing. Solis, who had headed the council’s powerful zoning committee, testified during the Madigan trial that he had accepted a bribe from a developer in the form of Viagra and massage parlour sessions that “turned sexual”.
Chicago has historically had a reputation for political corruption. More than 1,800 public officials in the city have been convicted on corruption charges in the past five decades, according to a 2023 report from the political science department at the University of Illinois Chicago. Four of the state’s 10 previous governors have gone to prison.
The verdict comes the same week that President Donald Trump agreed to pardon former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich. Trump commuted Blagojevich’s 14-year prison sentence during his first term. The former governor was convicted on corruption charges after trying to sell the US Senate seat previously held by former president Barack Obama and shake down a children’s hospital.
Madigan outlasted six governors, including Blagojevich. He loomed large over Illinois politics, amassing significant power over the flow of legislation in the capitol and the workings of the Illinois Democratic party, which he chaired from 1998 to 2021.
He testified during his trial that he never used his office to enrich himself.