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Law360 (May 28, 2021, 5:33 PM EDT) -- A top aide to former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan pled not guilty Friday to charges of lying to a grand jury investigating allegations that Commonwealth Edison bribed public officials in its push to change utility regulation.
Timothy Mapes, 66, entered the plea Friday morning during an appearance before U.S. District Judge John Z. Lee via video conference. He's charged with providing false material declarations under oath to a federal grand jury and attempted to obstruct its investigation into allegations of public corruption. The parties will be back before the judge on July 20 for a status hearing.
Prosecutors say Mapes, who was Madigan's longtime chief of staff before resigning in 2018, was granted immunity to testify in the probe, with an order providing that none of the testimony or evidence he provided to the grand jury could be used against him in a criminal case, save for perjury or false statements. But when he was called to testify in March, the government says he lied about interactions former ComEd lobbyist Michael McClain had with his former boss between 2017 and 2019.
According to the indictment, a "key issue" for the grand jury was whether McClain acted as an agent for Madigan in any respect during that time frame.
Mapes denied knowing that McClain — who is referred to in the indictment not by name but as "Individual B," a former member of the Illinois House of Representatives who served with Madigan and later became a lobbyist and consultant — carried out work for Madigan and communicated messages to others on his behalf, the indictment states, but prosecutors say he knew that was happening.
McClain described work he was performing on Madigan's behalf to Mapes, and messages were passed between the former speaker and McClain through Mapes concerning those kinds of assignments, prosecutors allege. And they kept communicating even after Mapes resigned, during which McClain allegedly described discussions he had with Madigan and assignments the former speaker had purportedly given McClain, and asked Mapes for advice on matters concerning Madigan and the Legislature, according to the indictment.
Madigan, who was the longest-serving state House speaker in U.S. history and arguably Illinois' most powerful politician, lost the gavel after he was implicated in the ComEd scandal last year, in which the utility admitted it arranged jobs and other benefits for "Public Official A."
That official wasn't identified by name but rather as the speaker of the Illinois House — pointing to Madigan, who has denied all wrongdoing but lost crucial support from some within his own party. He resigned from office in February.
ComEd agreed to pay $200 million to end an investigation into the bribery scheme, which prosecutors say spanned from 2011 to 2019, with the goal to gain the former speaker's favor in passing legislation that would benefit the Prairie State's largest electric utility.
According to the government, ComEd arranged jobs, vendor subcontracts and payouts associated with those jobs and subcontracts for the former speaker's associates, "even in instances where certain political allies and workers performed little or no work that they were purportedly hired to perform for ComEd." Prosecutors say that indirect payments to the speaker's associates totaled $1.3 million over that period and that some of the utility's senior executives and agents had known about the payments all along.
The government says ComEd's scheme aimed to garner Madigan's support for legislation that included the Energy Infrastructure and Modernization Act, a 2011 bill that set up a regulatory process through which it could more reliably determine rates to charge and how much money it could generate from its operations to cover other costs. The utility also successfully pushed for the passage of the Future Energy Jobs Act in 2016 to renew that beneficial regulatory process, it claims.
ComEd's former CEO and several other lobbyists and executives, including McClain, have also been charged with conspiring in the scheme. All have pled not guilty, save for Fidel Marquez, ComEd's former senior vice president of governmental and external affairs, who pled guilty in September and is cooperating with prosecutors.
The federal government is represented by Julia Kathryn Schwartz and Amarjeet Singh Bhachu of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois.
Mapes is represented by Andrew C. Porter and Kathleen Hill of Salvatore Prescott Porter & Porter.
The case is USA v. Mapes, case number 1:21-cr-00345, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
--Additional reporting by Lauraann Wood. Editing by Jay Jackson Jr.
For a reprint of this article, please contact reprints@law360.com.
