Prosecutors drop case against former AT&T boss from Illinois who allegedly bribed Madigan

After years of pressure in Springfield, AT&T Illinois leadership was delighted when the Illinois General Assembly passed legislation in 2017 that exempted the company from the costly obligation to maintain its aging copper landlines in Illinois.

“The game is over. We're winning,” Paul La Schiazza, president of AT&T Illinois, wrote to a colleague after the final vote to override then-Governor Bruce Rauner's veto of the bill on July 1, 2017. “I am very proud of our team for persevering under the most difficult circumstances.”

The past few months have been a rollercoaster ride for La Schiazza and his team. Until the end of the General Assembly's spring session, they weren't sure whether powerful Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan would even bring AT&T's prized bill to a vote, and then they were caught off guard by Rauner's veto.

For his efforts to finally pass the bill, La Schiazza received an $85,000 bonus the following February. But shortly thereafter, La Schiazza received a request that he took as a clear sign that people in Madigan's circle mattered – and that the speaker's efforts deserved further recognition.

Read more: Calculated bribery or “pandering” to Madigan? Corruption trial against former AT&T boss begins | Madigan case expands as AT&T agrees to $23 million fine

“Here we go… this never ends,” La Schiazza wrote to a colleague, forwarding an email from Madigan's son asking AT&T to sponsor an upcoming charity gala.

“I suspect there will be plenty of opportunities to say thank you,” the colleague replied.

“Yes… we are on the friends and family plan now,” La Schiazza wrote back.

Federal prosecutors showed the email on Monday as part of La Schiazza's final trial, in which the former AT&T president is accused of bribing Madigan with an alleged do-nothing consulting contract for a political ally worth $22,500.

Read more: Former AT&T lobbyist describes on the witness stand how Madigan's ally got a $22,500 contract

Prosecutors completed their charges against La Schiazza on Monday afternoon, while La Schiazza declined to present a defense. The jury will hear the case on Tuesday after attorneys for both sides make their closing arguments.

La Schiazza believes AT&T's successful push for the 2017 legislation was the result of a years-long, sophisticated lobbying strategy and that the consulting contract for former state Rep. Eddie Acevedo was simply designed to bolster the company's goodwill with Madigan.

Prosecutors sought to prove that Acevedo, who has already served a six-month prison sentence for tax evasion related to his lobbying work, did not work for AT&T during the nine months the company paid him indirectly through one of its longtime contract lobbyists.

Lobbyist Tom Cullen had previously told the jury that he agreed to pay Acevedo because he was a “team player” for his longtime client and never expected Acevedo to take on any work.

And on Monday, an FBI agent testified that he could not find any work done by Acevedo in more than 200,000 pages of documents from AT&T and APEX Strategies, the lobbying firm owned by Acevedo's sons. Acevedo was reportedly hired to prepare a report on the political dynamics within the Latino caucuses of the Illinois General Assembly and the Chicago City Council.

Cullen testified that months after Acevedo agreed to the $2,500-a-month agreement – and initially balked at the offer – he jokingly asked one of AT&T's internal lobbyists to discuss the phantom report.

Read more: In the bribery trial, AT&T lobbyists describe their controversial meeting with Madigan's allies

“Hey, have you seen the report?” Cullen asked the other lobbyist, laughing. “I don't think any of us expected there to be a report.”

Acevedo, who recently retired after 20 years in the Illinois House of Representatives, had been recommended for a job at AT&T by one of Madigan's closest confidants, longtime Springfield lobbyist Mike McClain.

McClain, who recently officially retired from lobbying but still hung around Springfield, first approached an AT&T lobbyist about a “small job” for Acevedo in February 2017. Two days later, cellphone records released Monday showed McClain and La Schiazza spoke briefly before La Schiazza sent an email to a handful of colleagues informing them that McClain had assigned him the AT&T bill as a “special project.”

La Schiazza's lawyers pointed out that their client played no active role in recruiting Acevedo – and never spoke to him on the phone, according to government cellphone records. But prosecutors noted that he signed the agreement and urged in emails to his colleagues that it be implemented quickly.

Meanwhile, Madigan spent hours Monday in a courtroom five floors below La Schiazza's trial at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago as his lawyers went through motion after motion ahead of his trial on bribery and organized crime charges scheduled for next month.

Judge John Blakey reserved some of his rulings until he could review the disputed evidence, but made some important rulings, including disallowing an intercepted phone call between Madigan and McClain, his co-defendant in the trial.

McClain has already been convicted along with other former lobbyists and executives at utility company Commonwealth Edison in a similar bribery scheme to the one alleged in the AT&T trial, but on a larger scale. McClain and his co-defendants are fighting the convictions after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this summer tightened the definition of “bribery.”

Read more: Supreme Court ruling could overturn federal corruption cases against Madigan and his allies

As in the ComEd case, Judge Blakey prohibited prosecutors from playing a call in which Madigan joked to McClain that certain labor lawyers under contract with ComEd had been “making money like bandits.”

“And all for very little work,” McClain agreed.

Blakey agreed with Madigan's lawyers that the call was confusing and prejudicial because the advisers named in the call were not actually among the speaker's allies in the alleged government bribery scheme.

The judge also ruled that while the jury could hear about payments McClain arranged for a fired political official in Madigan's political organization, prosecutors were barred from discussing the sexual harassment allegations that led to the official's firing.

Blakey also noted that jury selection in Madigan's trial could take up to four days, meaning opening arguments in the trial could be pushed back to October 15.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that covers state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and television stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and the Southern Illinois Editorial Association.