CHICAGO, Ill. (Capitol News Illinois) – Former state Rep. Eddie Acevedo never had to appear in a federal courtroom between 2021 and 2022 as he was arraigned on tax evasion charges, later pleaded guilty and was then sentenced to six months in prison all via videoconference due to COVID-19.
But on Tuesday, Acevedo was summoned to the Dirksen Federal Courthouse so the judge overseeing former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s corruption trial could evaluate whether he’s fit to testify. And on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge John Blakey ordered him to come back next week to appear on the witness stand under an immunity order.
“If you don’t show up, that would be a violation of my order,” Judge Blakey told Acevedo after arguments from attorneys and the government. “If you show up and don’t answer questions, that would be a violation of my order. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Acevedo said, leaning on the walker he used to make his way to the front of the courtroom.
Before the judge’s ruling, Acevedo attorney Gabrielle Sansonetti argued the 61-year-old’s dementia diagnosis caused her client to give misinformation during his interview Tuesday afternoon, saying she only had an interest in “not putting someone on the stand to just humiliate them.”
While defense lawyers argued Acevedo “clearly” displayed “a lack of recollection” on Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Amarjeet Bhachu claimed the former lawmaker was “wholly capable of testifying and it’s not even close.”
Parties are still deciding whether to request Acevedo appear live on Monday or do a videotaped deposition that would be played in the courtroom the next day to prevent jurors from seeing any statements related to his condition that could be edited out of a video recording.
Fresh off two years of supervised release after his stint at a North Carolina federal prison ended in early December 2022, the former cop-turned-Democratic lawmaker sported a similar outfit both days, consisting of dark sweatpants and a charcoal fleece vest embroidered with a Chicago Police Department star, which matched his graying hair.
Acevedo is the star of the last episode that prosecutors are seeking to prove in Madigan’s bribery, racketeering and extortion trial, which is in its eighth week of testimony. The feds allege McClain, acting on Madigan’s orders, arranged a no-work contract for Acevedo with AT&T Illinois in exchange for helping the company achieve its legislative goals in 2017.
Read more: In bribery trial, AT&T lobbyists detail contentious meeting with Madigan ally | On witness stand, former AT&T lobbyist describes how Madigan ally got $22,500 contract
Though Acevedo has not been charged with wrongdoing in relation to those allegations, he and his two sons were caught up in the same sprawling federal corruption investigation that nabbed Madigan. Each ended up serving short sentences for tax evasion related to their lobbying activities.
Before trial adjourned on Tuesday, the jury saw an email central to prosecutors’ allegations that McClain facilitated Acevedo’s nine-month, $25,000 contract with AT&T at Madigan’s behest.
“Bob, I hope this note finds you well,” McClain wrote in a Feb. 14, 2017, email to AT&T Illinois lobbyist Robert Barry. “BOB, is there even a small contract for Eddie Acevedo?”
Hours earlier, Barry was one of several company executives who had been copied on an email to AT&T Illinois president Paul La Schiazza informing him that Madigan had agreed to sit down with him about legislation the company had been working on for years.
AT&T had been pushing to end a 1930s-era regulation obligating it to provide copper landline service everywhere in Illinois, despite customers moving away from landlines in droves. Maintenance on the decades-old copper wire system was costing the company millions each year and by 2017, Illinois and California were the only two states that still had these “carrier of last resort,” or COLR, laws on their books.
While AT&T’s competitors were investing more into technologies like wireless networks and broadband internet, the telecom giant claimed it was hamstrung by its COLR obligations.
The jury heard from Deno Perdiou, AT&T’s director of external and government affairs over Illinois and Wisconsin. He explained that AT&T had to scour eBay for parts to repair its copper wire systems because the businesses who manufactured them had folded decades ago.
Perdiou was also copied on a Feb. 16, 2017, email from La Schiazza, telling AT&T Illinois’ executive team that he’d just spoken to McClain, who told him that Madigan had assigned him the COLR relief bill as a “special project.”
“Game on,” La Schiazza wrote in his update.
Prosecutors allege the timing of McClain’s request for a “small contract” for Acevedo and Madigan’s “special project” assignment – despite the fact that McClain was newly retired from lobbying and had never worked for AT&T – is evidence of a bribe.
But La Schiazza’s bribery trial in September ended in a hung jury. After declaring a mistrial in the case, the judge heard arguments for acquittal last month and is expected to rule next week on whether La Schiazza will face a new trial or see his charges dropped.
Read more: Judge weighs whether to acquit ex-AT&T boss after hung jury in corruption case | Jury deadlocks, mistrial declared in case of ex-AT&T boss accused of bribing Madigan
Perdiou’s testimony will continue Wednesday. But prosecutors won’t be calling retired AT&T Illinois lobbyist Steve Selcke, who testified in La Schiazza’s trial under an immunity letter.
Madigan and McClain’s attorneys argued unsuccessfully Tuesday that prosecutors should be barred from admitting certain evidence without Selcke on the witness stand to explain what he and his colleagues meant in emails subpoenaed by the feds.
Madigan attorney Dan Collins was cynical about the government’s motives in not calling Selcke, noting that he hadn’t been helpful to the feds’ arguments when he testified in September.
Under questioning from both prosecutors and defense attorneys, Selcke denied multiple times that Acevedo’s contract was in any way related to AT&T’s efforts on COLR relief.
“Mr. Selcke testified in September that … it was not in exchange for official action,” Collins argued Tuesday in a pre-trial hearing before Judge Blakey. “It was not a bribe. So it’s no shock that the government has chosen not to call him.”
Instead, Selcke is now on the defense’s witness list. Collins indicated he and his colleagues issued a subpoena to Selcke as soon as prosecutors said they wouldn’t be calling him. Selcke’s attorneys attended trial all day Tuesday.
Defense attorneys are likely to begin their case next week after the prosecution rests. Closing arguments are likely to begin after New Year’s Day, the parties agreed Tuesday.
Chinatown redux
Earlier in the day, the jury heard from likely the final two government witnesses to testify about a yearlong effort to transfer state-owned land in Chicago’s Chinatown neighborhood to the city so it could be sold to real estate developers.
Chicago alderman-turned-FBI cooperator Danny Solis asked Madigan to help with the effort in July 2017 after he’d taken an unrelated pair of real estate developers to Madigan’s law office for an introduction.
At the time, Solis was a year into working as an undercover government mole. He and an FBI agent overseeing the investigation testified that until Madigan called the alderman out of the blue the month before, the government’s investigation wasn’t focused on Madigan.
Solis’ secret video recordings and wiretapped phone calls helped topple his colleague, Chicago Ald. Ed Burke, who’s currently serving a two-year prison sentence for bribery. Solis’s cooperation also led to guilty pleas on bribery charges from a contractor close to the alderman and a Chicago Public Schools official.
Madigan assigned McClain to help Solis in Springfield. At their second meeting in December 2017, Solis implied to McClain that the Chinatown developers would hire Madigan’s law firm for their property tax appeals needs. Months later, Solis explicitly told Madigan that the developers would use his law firm after the land transfer deal was done.
Though the deal never materialized, prosecutors allege Madigan’s behind-the-scenes machinations were part of a conspiracy.
McClain recruited Republican lobbyist Nancy Kimme to work on the project in the fall of 2017. Jurors heard dozens of wiretapped calls about the effort while Solis was on the witness stand before Thanksgiving and while Kimme was testifying last week.
In one memorable call from May 16, 2018, Kimme and McClain were flummoxed by the roadblocks to what was supposed to be a simple land transfer bill. McClain noted that “there’s something fishy here, don’t you think?” after Kimme had a meeting with Democratic state Rep. Theresa Mah, who surprised her by voicing her opposition to the project.
Solis had told Kimme that Mah, who lived in and represented Chinatown in her near-South Side district, was on board. Instead, however, Mah told Kimme that the project was a “scam” and that her constituents didn’t trust Solis.
On Tuesday, the jury heard from Kimme’s lobbying associate, Ryan McCreery, who testified that the pair kept pushing for the land transfer even after Mah voiced her opposition because they believed she could be brought to an officially “neutral” stance.
McCreery contacted then-state Rep. Avery Bourne, a Republican from Christian County, south of Springfield. Bourne was the sponsor of a larger land transfer bill initiated by the Illinois Department of Transportation, and McCreery asked if she’d be willing to add the Chinatown land transfer language as an amendment to her larger bill.
But Bourne, who testified Tuesday, called IDOT and found out the agency wasn’t supportive of the land transfer. She also sought out Mah and learned she was opposed too. On the final day of legislative session in May 2018, McCreery texted Bourne to ask if she was going to run her bill, telling her Madigan would be supportive.
In that moment, Bourne said she believed her bill “would be dead without the amendment.” Later that day, Bourne filed the amendment but told the jury she never meant to attach it to her bill and was merely doing so as a matter of public record.
On the eve of lawmakers’ fall veto session in 2018, Republican Leader Jim Durkin texted Bourne to ask if she’d be willing to give up sponsorship of her bill to outgoing Democratic Rep. Dan Burke, D-Chicago. Though it never ended up happening, the exchange raised her suspicions, she testified.
“If (Democrats) were interested in transferring the bill, they were likely to add this amendment back in and I would not be supportive,” she said.
The jury has already heard wiretapped phone calls from November 2018 in which Madigan suggested to McClain that Burke sponsor the bill and McClain asking Burke if he’d be willing.
Bourne ended up passing the bill during veto session without the Chinatown language.
(Reporting by Hannah Meisel, Capitol News Illinois)
Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
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