CHICAGO – For the past three months, the judge presiding over former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s federal corruption trial has reminded jurors before each lunch break and evening recess not to discuss the case with anyone, even among themselves.
But as the defense prepares to rest its case Thursday morning, the only thing separating the jury from the deliberation room will be three days of closing arguments scheduled for next week. If the lawyers’ remaining to-do list – which includes finalizing the all-important jury instructions – stays on track, jurors will finally begin deliberating the week of Jan. 27.
Before Madigan’s attorneys put their defense case to bed, they questioned final witnesses and put final bits of evidence into the record, including a sort of message from Gov. JB Pritzker. The governor’s name has come up repeatedly in trial, mostly in the context of Madigan having agreed to recommend Chicago alderman-turned-FBI mole Danny Solis for an appointment to a high-paying state board position.
“If called as a witness, Gov. JB Pritzker would testify that he does not recall meeting with Michael Madigan on Dec. 4, 2018, and he does not recall Madigan ever discussing or recommending Daniel Solis or Maya Solis, either orally or in writing, for any position on a State of Illinois board or commission,” the former speaker’s attorney Lari Dierks read to the jury as one of nearly two dozen stipulations she gave at the end of the trial day Wednesday.
A stipulation is a fact agreed on by both the defense and prosecution put forth to the jury as evidence in equal weight to exhibits and testimony, though few of the roughly 90 stipulations in trial so far have been nearly as interesting as Wednesday’s Pritzker-related one. Jurors have already seen a series of videos Solis secretly recorded of meetings between himself and Madigan discussing a potential board appointment, the last of which took place a few weeks after Pritzker’s November 2018 election as governor.
In that meeting, Madigan mentioned that he was set to meet with the governor-elect the following week and asked Solis to send him a resume beforehand – along with his daughter Maya’s for good measure.
Evidence introduced when former Madigan and Pritzker staffers, including a now-congresswoman, were on the witness stand showed Solis’ name was absent from any iterations of the recommendation list the speaker gave to the Pritzker team. But they were never directly asked whether Solis’ name came up during any meetings or phone calls during that time.
Madigan and Solis also testified about the board seat discussions, with the former speaker this week attempting to characterize his promise to Solis as merely being “prepared to entertain the possibility I would submit his name,” he testified.
He also said Solis was taken out of the running for a recommendation in January 2019 when news reports revealed the alderman had been an FBI cooperating witness. Further revelations that Solis had secretly recorded Madigan wouldn’t be made public for another few years.
The former speaker’s promise to submit Solis’ name for Pritzker’s consideration in staffing up a new administration is the basis for one of the seven bribery charges in the former speaker’s 23-count indictment. Prosecutors say Madigan’s willingness to help Solis was in exchange for the alderman’s repeated offers to introduce the powerful speaker to more real estate developers so that his property tax appeals law firm could pitch them on its services.
Defense’s final witness
Earlier Wednesday, the jury heard from the defense’s final witness: Springfield lobbyist Heather Wier Vaught, who’d served a dozen years as an attorney in Madigan’s office, including as chief counsel.
Wier Vaught gave roughly the same testimony as two other former top speaker’s office lawyers the defense had previously called as witnesses. She said Madigan followed staff recommendations about key legislation at issue in trial and never interfered with negotiations of those bills.