Federal Trial to Decide Whether Ex-Chief of Staff Lied to Protect His Boss, Illinois House Speaker

CHICAGO (AP) — The trial of a former chief of workers to longtime Illinois Home Speaker Michael Madigan opened Wednesday with a federal prosecutor arguing that the defendant lied underneath oath to a grand jury to guard his boss.

The 68-year-old Tim Mapes, who served for nearly twenty years as Madigan’s chief of workers, faces single counts of perjury and tried obstruction of justice. A conviction on the obstruction rely alone carries as much as 20 years in jail.

Mapes lied repeatedly when he testified in 2021 to a grand jury investigating Madigan and others. In opening statements, the prosecutor instructed jurors Mapes additionally lied when he mentioned he couldn’t recall any related particulars about Madigan’s ties to Michael McClain, who’s a Madigan confidant, the Chicago Tribune reported.

“The defendant lied. Not simply as soon as however repeatedly and once more, to forestall the grand jury from discovering out” what Madigan, a Democrat, was as much as, prosecutor Diane MacArthur mentioned.

Federal jurors in Could convicted four defendants of bribery conspiracy involving the state’s largest electrical utility. Prosecutors mentioned McClain, two former ComEd executives and a former utility advisor organized contracts, jobs and cash for associates of Madigan’s to make sure proposed payments boosting ComEd earnings turned regulation.

A 12 months earlier than his 2022 indictment and amid hypothesis that he was a federal goal, he resigned from the Legislature because the longest-serving state Home speaker in fashionable U.S. historical past.

In her opening Monday, protection lawyer Katie Hill instructed jurors Mapes by no means deliberately misled the grand jury, saying he merely could not keep in mind many particulars about which he was requested.

Hill likened the questions Mapes was requested to a pop quiz at a highschool reunion. She requested jurors in the event that they’d be capable to keep in mind the colour of their promenade corsages or who was class president their junior 12 months, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

“Tim Mapes didn’t lie within the grand jury,” Hill mentioned. “He didn’t try and impede justice.”

The primary prosecution witness Monday was a former Home Majority Chief Greg Harris, a Democrat from Chicago, who defined to jurors how state authorities works. He additionally described the facility Madigan yielded as speaker.

Madigan has denied any wrongdoing.

The indictment accused Madigan, amongst different issues, of reaping the advantages of personal authorized work that was illegally steered to his regulation agency.

Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This materials will not be revealed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.