Prosecutors begin playing Tim Mapes’ 2021 grand jury testimony in Madigan probe, offering rare glimpse into normally secret proceedings
Tim Mapes was just minutes into his grand jury testimony in Chicago’s federal courthouse two years ago when a prosecutor warned that even though Mapes had been granted immunity, he could still be prosecuted for lying.
“You understand you are under oath and you are obligated to tell the truth,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu said near the beginning of the March 31, 2021, inquiry. “So if you tell the truth, you’re in good shape, if you lie there’s a prosecution for perjury potentially in your future. Do you understand that?”
“Yes sir,” Mapes replied.
On Tuesday, the future was now, as federal prosecutors began playing the audio of Mapes’ grand jury testimony in his own perjury trial, where he stands accused of lying to protect his longtime boss, the once-powerful Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan.
The playing of Mapes’ testimony offers a rare public glimpse into normally secret grand jury proceedings, lifting the veil on a key manner in which large-scale criminal investigations proceed and detailing some of the cat-and-mouse that goes on between prosecutors and witnesses and their attorneys.
Later Tuesday, prosecutors offered new insight into another politically explosive chapter in Illinois, using undercover recordings and emails to portray the behind-the-scenes response to a sexual harassment scandal that had engulfed Madigan’s operation in 2018 and threatened his decadeslong run as speaker.
“If we want to protect and save MJM (Madigan) we cannot play punchy bags above the belt,” Michael McClain, the speaker’s longtime confidant, wrote in one email to Madigan’s inner circle of advisers. “It is time to be offensive. ... We have to play hardball and quit doing this nicey-nicey stuff on the calls.”
Mapes, 68, of Springfield, is charged with perjury and attempted obstruction of justice, accused in an indictment of lying in his answers to seven questions during the more than two-hour testimony.
The latter charge calls for up to 20 years in federal prison, while lying to a grand jury carries a five-year maximum prison sentence.
Prosecutors accused Mapes of lying about his knowledge of the political activities of Madigan and McClain, both before and after Madigan ousted Mapes in June 2018 amid the burgeoning #MeToo scandal.
Those allegedly misleading statements had little effect, as Madigan and McClain were both indicted on racketeering charges last year alleging Madigan was at the top of a criminal enterprise aimed at enriching him and his cronies and maintaining his nearly unfettered political power.
McClain was also convicted in a related case in May on bribery conspiracy charges involving a scheme by utility giant Commonwealth Edison to win the speaker’s influence over legislation in Springfield.
Federal grand juries are the mechanism used by prosecutors to bring an indictment against a defendant. The grand jury — which consists of 23 members of the public who convene over a period of months or even years — operates in secret, issuing subpoenas for records through federal prosecutors and hearing testimony from witnesses before deciding if probable cause exists to believe a crime was committed.
Grand jury proceedings typically come out in court only in snippets of transcripts to buttress other testimony or impeach a witness on the stand.
Given that Mapes was a key member of Madigan’s inner circle who for years served as the speaker’s borderline-tyrannical gatekeeper, what he had to say in his grand jury testimony is of keen interest to many Illinois power brokers.
Mapes’ appearance took place as the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse was still operating under strict COVID-19 protocols, including wearing masks.
“Good morning sir I’m all the way over here,” Bhachu said at the outset of the hearing. “Due to COVID we are still social distancing, which is why I’m so far away.”
Mapes confirmed for Bhachu at the outset of the questioning that his original date to testify was postponed for several weeks so he could prepare for his testimony with his attorney.
After having Mapes describe his typical duties, Bhachu began asking specifically about his relationship with Madigan and what he knew about Madigan’s closest friends.
Mapes ticked off Madigan’s law partner, Vincent Getzendanner, insurance and real estate businessman Terry O’Brien, and Roger Kiley, a Madigan college friend who served as a top aide to Mayor Richard M. Daley.
Mapes also mentioned longtime House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, a Chicago Democrat, but Bhachu seemed unimpressed with that example, asking, “Who else?”
“Another one might be Mike McClain,” Mapes offered hesitantly. At the time, McClain was under indictment for bribery conspiracy in the ComEd Four scheme.
“(McClain) was one of my fr— sorry strike that,” Mapes said, apparently stopping short of calling McClain a friend. “He was a member of the legislature before I started. … And then he was also a member of the leadership before he lost his election.”
But Mapes, at least in the portion of the recording played so far, did little to underscore the tight political relationship of Madigan and McClain, who served with the speaker when they were both rank-and-file lawmakers in the 1970s and early 1980s and then worked with him closely on government and political issues even while serving as a lobbyist.
Mapes said McClain would stop by the speaker’s office, sometimes when he was representing a lobbying client and sometimes “to say hi.”
Prior testimony in the trial indicated McClain, despite his longtime role as a lobbyist, often camped out in a conference room between the offices of Madigan and Mapes in the speaker’s Capitol suite.
Mapes even played down Madigan’s longtime admiration of Mayor Richard J. Daley, someone Madigan often spoke about with reverence.
“I think he had a respect for him,” Mapes said. “I don’t know about esteem.”
Mapes said he remembered Madigan saying Richard J. Daley “was a good politician” but testified that Madigan didn’t say why he thought that.
Later, Bhachu turned his questioning to what Mapes knew about specific figures in the ComEd aspect of the probe, including ex-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, lobbyist John Hooker, and consultant Jay Doherty, who were all convicted in the ComEd Four case.
Mapes said he was familiar with Pramaggiore since she was often in Springfield advocating for legislation or other things the utility wanted.
“Did you ever meet her?” Bhachu asked.
“Oh yes,” Mapes said.
“You say, ‘Oh yes.’ How many times?” Bhachu shot back.
After thinking about it for some time, Mapes said, “I may have met her 10 times.”
Bhachu also asked about Mapes’ potential employment with ComEd after his resignation in 2018. Mapes said he met with Pramaggiore about “possibly doing some lobbying work for ComEd in another state. “I think I got a call from her office but I couldn’t tell you who it was,” he said.
Mapes says he didn’t know who identified him as a candidate for a job with ComEd, which prompted Bhachu to ask, somewhat rhetorically, whether someone had just approached him “out of the blue.”
“I received calls from a number of people after I resigned that they thought they might like to do some work with me,” Mapes said.
Bhachu also seemed keenly interested in Hooker and his involvement in a lawsuit over redistricting legislation that would have taken power away from the speaker’s office when it came to redrawing legislative district boundaries every 10 years.
Mapes confirmed he was aware that both Hooker and another former ComEd executive, Frank Clark, were involved in fighting the lawsuit, as was Michael Kasper, one of Madigan’s top attorneys.
Mapes said he knew little about the litigation — despite being the executive director of the state Democratic Party for years — but that he thought Madigan would have had an interest in the outcome.
“His view would have been that the legislature has the constitutional authority to do that, and that was the preferred method,” Mapes testified.
Prosecutors are expected to play the rest of Mapes’ grand jury testimony over the next several days.
Earlier Tuesday, prosecutors sought to support their argument that Mapes fudged in the March 2021 grand jury if he had been aware of any tasks or assignments that Madigan gave McClain in 2017 or 2018 as well as related questions.
Prosecutors played a secretly recorded call from May 30, 2018, where Mapes and McClain talked about the proposed sale of a parcel of land in Chinatown to a developer that had become a focus of the investigation into Madigan.
McClain told Mapes on the call that the land sale was “an assignment, as you probably know,” a reference to the speaker that prosecutors say shows Mapes was well aware that Madigan was doling out tasks to McClain.
“I’m trying to get some, uh, legal property transferred. ... And uh it’s in (state Rep. Theresa) Mah’s district, and the guy that’s putting a brick on it right now in the senate is, uh, Marty Sandoval,” McClain told Mapes on the call.
“It’s not a good thing to do,” Mapes responded about Sandoval, an on-again, off-again Madigan ally who at the time was the powerful head of the Senate Transportation Committee.
Mapes also warned McClain that Mah had an “in-your-face” style that included “body language” he found abrasive.
“You see the intensity in a really negative way,” Mapes said.
After some small talk about meeting for dinner, the two began speaking about how good Hooker, who at the time was ComEd’s top in-house lobbyist, looked for his age, especially given Hooker’s recent knee-replacement surgery.
“Well you know, (Hooker), everybody was complimenting him,” McClain told Mapes. “It’s like he’s rappelling down from heaven to save the day you know?”
Prosecutors also played three calls where McClain and Mapes talk about McClain meeting with state Rep. Bob Rita, a Blue Island Democrat who was heading up the massive gambling legislation at Madigan’s behest.
Immediately after the jury heard those recorded calls, prosecutors played a snippet of Mapes’ grand jury testimony where he’s asked about contact between McClain and Rita.
“I don’t recall any at all. Any dialogue,” Mapes said.
Also Tuesday, lobbyist Will Cousineau made his second appearance on the witness stand in federal court. Cousineau worked closely with Mapes for years as a top political guru on Madigan’s staff and stayed within a small circle of advisers while Madigan remained in power.
Cousineau’s testimony took a brief emotional turn when Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur asked if Mapes had recently touched base to wish him happy birthday and again for his anniversary, and if he’d gotten the dates right.
Cousineau’s voice broke and grew quiet.
“He did,” replied Cousineau, who worked closely with Mapes.
Cousineau’s halting response, as Mapes looked on from the defense table, tapping his pen with a finger, prompted MacArthur to ask Cousineau if he needed a moment to gather himself.
Later, MacArthur pressed Cousineau to give an insider’s look at how Madigan’s tight circle panicked over fears that he could be toppled from his speakership over a February 2018 sexual harassment scandal involving one of the speaker’s top lieutenants, Kevin Quinn.
Madigan ousted Quinn, the brother of Madigan’s hand-picked 13th Ward Ald. Marty Quinn, after former campaign aide Alaina Hampton called out Kevin Quinn over a relentless string of emails despite her requests that he stop.
The Hampton allegations set off a cascade of #MeToo moments that ended Madigan’s association with several misbehaving associates, culminating in the speaker’s ouster of Mapes over his own scandal in June 2018.
Prosecutors are highlighting the sordid episodes because they are attempting to show that Mapes — before he was jettisoned by Madigan, observed firsthand that McClain worked closely with the speaker on highly sensitive matters.
Under MacArthur’s questioning, Cousineau acknowledged the Hampton allegations represented a significant concern for the speaker’s inner circle.
“It was, yes,” Cousineau said.
A great concern? she asked.
“Yes,” Cousineau said.
Cousineau said Madigan supporters feared he “would lose his position as speaker.”
Cousineau outlined a number of strategy discussions with Madigan’s most trusted allies, including himself, Mapes and McClain, about the growing scandal.
McClain’s sword-rattling email on the topic came Feb. 21, 2018, just days after Hampton’s allegations, with a subject line that said: “I will now do what I have done for 45+ years. Old School but the Truth.”
The email called for taking off the gloves to protect Madigan and attempting to place stories with reporters that would counter the #MeToo narrative that was engulfing Madigan.
“We have to change the focus. We have to acknowledge that reporters are over worked, under payed and want stories brought to them,” McClain wrote.
Cousineau testified they ultimately did not use any of McClain’s ideas.
Prosecutors also played a recording in which Madigan expressed concern with his inner circle about the independence of a panel of three female elected officials he had appointed to come up with ideas for improving the treatment of women in political environments, including former Rep. Susana Mendoza, the Chicago Democrat who is now state comptroller.
Madigan sounded miffed on the May 1, 2018, call that the panel was looking at communicating with him only through writing and posed the question to his advisers, “What do we do with this panel? What do we do with it? Do we do anything with it? Uh, do we just let it go and go and go?”
Madigan eventually made it clear he was looking ahead toward trying to preserve his position after the 2018 elections, asking, “What do I have to do or what should I do from now until the speaker’s election?”
Cousineau’s testimony will resume Wednesday, followed by former state Rep. Lou Lang, who was forced to resign by Madigan following separate #MeToo accusations, which he denied.
Before Cousineau took the stand, prosecutors called Mika Baugher, Madigan’s former secretary who worked closely with Mapes on the speaker’s busy schedule.
Baugher says Mapes “had great attention to detail” and could be overbearing as a boss. “I would say he was a very controlling management style. He micromanaged a lot of things.”
On June 6, 2018, Mapes resigned. Baugher says he “came to my desk and gave me his keys, his badge and his resignation later and he left.”
Asked if his resignation was expected or unexpected, Baugher’s eyebrows shot up.
“Unexpected,” she said. “I mean ... yeah.”
