Federal jury gets case against Tim Mapes, longtime Democratic insider charged with lying to protect ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan
After three weeks of trial full of intrigue and Springfield political scandal, a jury is now deliberating the fate of Tim Mapes, the longtime aide to former Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan accused of lying to a federal grand jury to protect his boss.
The jury of six men and six women was sent back at 4:35 p.m. Wednesday after hearing about five hours of closing arguments. Less than 10 minutes later, the panel sent U.S. District Judge John Kness a note requesting to go home for the day. “Leave: Now? Return: 9 a.m. 8/24,″ the note read.
“I think that is admirably concise and informative,” said Kness, who granted the request.
Mapes, 68, of Springfield, is charged with perjury and attempted obstruction of justice in an indictment accusing him of repeatedly lying during his appearance before the grand jury investigating Madigan and his vaunted political operation.
He faces up to 20 years in prison on the obstruction count, while the perjury charges carry up to five years behind bars.
In her closing argument Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia Schwartz told the jury that Mapes, who had served as Madigan’s chief of staff for more than 25 years, was an insider “who was behind the curtain” of Madigan’s often-secretive political organization, and could have given the grand jury key insight when he testified under a grant of immunity on March 31, 2021.
Many of the allegedly misleading statements had to do with Mapes’ failure to recollect anything about Madigan’s relationship with longtime confidant Michael McClain, and whether Madigan continued to give McClain political “assignments” after McClain’s retirement from lobbying in 2016, according to prosecutors.
“If the defendant had been honest, he would have been a star witness,” Schwartz said. “But he did everything he could to obstruct the process … to minimize his participation, to act as if he was clueless.”
Some of the questions posed by the prosecutor in the grand jury were “Springfield 101, Madigan 101,” Schwartz said.
But Mapes acted as if there was a “third rail” when it came to answering questions about Madigan and McClain, who were at the center of the government’s ongoing probe, Schwartz said.
“These three men were tight, extremely tight. Who better to give the grand jury insight into what was going on than this defendant?” Schwartz asked, pointing to Mapes at the defense table.
Mapes’ attorney, Andrew Porter, blasted those allegations in his closing argument, including the idea that Mapes somehow could have been a “star witness” against Madigan.
“It assumes, without evidence, assumes that Tim Mapes knew whether Madigan and McClain were discussing these topics,” Porter said. “And he didn’t. ... He couldn’t remember what he didn’t know.”
Porter also said Mapes had no motive to lie, particularly since Madigan had ousted him in June 2018 in the midst of a sexual harassment scandal.
“The government throws out (it was to) ‘protect the boss’. ... Why would he fall on his sword for a guy who kicked him to the curb three years before?” Porter asked the jury.
Porter said it was clear that the federal grand jury was looking specifically at an alleged bribery scheme by Madigan, McClain and others related to Commonwealth Edison — something Mapes had no knowledge of whatsoever.
“Mapes made that clear in the grand jury,” Porter said. “He did not know, and does not know, anything about any crimes that Michael Madigan and Michael McClain may have committed, and ladies and gentlemen, you have heard no evidence in this trial that he did.”
Porter said, “If Madigan was having criminal conversations about ComEd and hiring processes of ComEd, Tim Mapes wasn’t a part of it.”
Prosecutors, however, argued that Mapes was asked about much more than simply ComEd, and the seven sections of his grand jury testimony specifically cited in the perjury count say nothing about ComEd at all.
Schwartz said Mapes’ lies were intentional and repeated and on broad topics, and that he was evasive even when asked simple things like the extent of the relationship he had with McClain.
McClain, Schwartz said, was Madigan’s trusted right-hand man, who had unique access to the speaker and would camp out in his office suite at the Capitol. McClain and Mapes were also good friends, she says, and Mapes lied about it.
“Protecting those two men was a key motivation,” she said.
Schwartz played a snippet of the grand jury testimony when Mapes said McClain was “one of my fr— ... sorry strike that,” then basically recited McClain’s work history that anyone could have looked up on Google. She said Mapes caught himself before acknowledging McClain was a friend and touching the third rail.
She also played a portion of the grand jury testimony when Mapes was asked whether McClain was acting as an “agent” or “messenger” for Madigan.
“I’m not aware of any,” Mapes answered.
Schwartz called that answer “preposterous.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Mapes is no dummy,” Schwartz said. “He knew exactly what was being asked, and he tried to shut down any further questioning by pretending he didn’t remember. And that was a lie.”
During her argument, Schwartz displayed a diagram showing a triangle of Springfield power, with Madigan’s photo at the top and McClain and Mapes forming the base.
“Mike Madigan, the boss. ... He wielded immense power in the General Assembly and in the Democratic Party of Illinois.” And Tim Mapes? “Nobody got in to see the wizard without going through that man,” she said, referring to a sign that Mapes kept in his office that paraphrased “The Wizard of Oz.”
Schwartz plowed even deeper into the mountain of evidence the prosecution piled up in trying to bring down Mapes as she went into a 14-point, step-by-step description of how the government proved that he attempted to obstruct justice.
Prosecutors only need to prove one of the 14 points in order to win a conviction on the obstruction count.
Schwartz pointed out that Mapes himself passed along to McClain some of the political and government assignments that Madigan wanted McClain to perform.
Schwartz also explained Mapes did not face “trick questions” but rather would not explain even basics about the McClain-Madigan relationship.
“Nobody knew that relationship between Mike Madigan and Mike McClain better than this man,” Schwartz said, pointing out that McClain camped out by himself in a Capitol conference room in between the offices of Mapes and Madigan in the speaker’s suite.
She also noted how Mapes and McClain kept in touch closely as McClain delivered to then-Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, the news that Madigan wanted him to leave the House after more than three decades.
Lang was one of a series of Madigan allies, along with Mapes, accused of sexual harassment in 2018, when the #MeToo movement rocked the speaker’s staff — one of the major moments in Madigan’s record reign that eventually led to him losing the speakership in 2021. Lang and Mapes both denied the allegations.
Schwartz played a call from Halloween 2018 when McClain told Mapes he was going to wait until Lang’s directed fundraising checks cleared, “And then I gotta tell him that he’s gotta move on. That he has no future in the House.”
“Will you be wearing your big boy pants that day,” Mapes asked, laughing.
In the grand jury, however, Mapes said he had “no knowledge or recall” of any role McClain played in Lang’s departure.
“These were brazen lies,” Schwartz said.
Mapes, Schwartz said, also lied about knowing McClain worked with Rep. Bob Rita, D-Blue Island, on gambling legislation as well as on a Madigan-backed effort to transfer the state’s ownership of a Chinatown property to the city so that developers could eventually send Madigan’s law firm its tax business — a key part of Madigan’s racketeering case.
Schwartz said that if someone were to just “sit back and listen” to Mapes’ grand jury testimony, “You would think that the defendant and Mr. McClain were almost total strangers.”
But why did he lie? “He did it to protect the boss — to protect the boss and stay in the foxhole,” Schwartz said.
Mapes, who in addition to being Madigan’s chief of staff also served stints as executive director of the state Democratic Party and the clerk of the House, has denied making any false statements.
His attorneys have argued that he did his “level best” to provide truthful answers. They also accused prosecutors of asking open-ended questions and failing to provide Mapes with any corroborating materials that might refresh his recollection of years-old conversations.
Mapes chose not to testify in his own defense.
Over eight days of testimony, prosecutors presented 14 witnesses and dozens of wiretapped phone conversations, emails and other documents in an effort to prove that Mapes was lying.
The prosecution’s case also included the audio of Mapes’ entire grand jury testimony, offering a rare glimpse into a secretive process and illuminating how big-time political corruption investigations play out behind the scenes.
In his argument on Wednesday, Porter hit on a major theme of the defense: McClain is a storyteller and exaggerates and you have to take everything he says with a grain of salt. Even the FBI tended not to believe him when he made outlandish claims on the wiretaps, Porter said.
Porter said there is a “sinister sheen” when it came to the wiretaps, but the recordings in this case caught conversations between Mapes and McClain about noncriminal topics, like committee assignments, leadership posts, where they’re going to dinner and where Mapes might land a job.
“Again, so what?” Porter asked.
Porter ended his argument by beseeching the jury to send Mapes home. “It’s time for Tim Mapes to get back to his life,” he said. “He didn’t do this. He didn’t do what he is charged with. He did his level best to testify truthfully to the grand jury.”
In her rebuttal argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur said the “life that Mr. Mapes chose for himself was the one he put on the table on March 31, 2021, when he chose to not take the oath seriously when he chose to lie repeatedly.”
MacArthur acknowledged that McClain could be a “blowhard,” but said Mapes was savvy enough to know the difference, and that there was “no baloney going on” when he talked with McClain about the political intricacies involved in Madigan making committee and leadership appointments.
“Mr. Mapes used the ‘I don’t recall, I don’t remember’ as a total dodge,” MacArthur said. “His effort to hide behind ‘I don’t recall’ is ridiculous.”
Mapes’ trial is the latest among a series of blockbuster cases to arise out of the political corruption probe into Madigan.
Earlier this year, the “ComEd Four” trial ended with the convictions of McClain and three others on bribery conspiracy charges alleging they schemed to funnel payments from the utility to Madigan associates in exchange for the speaker’s assistance with legislation in Springfield.
Madigan and McClain are set to go on trial in April on separate racketeering charges alleging Madigan used official duties to maintain his power and enrich his cronies.
Both have denied the allegations.
