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Tim Mapes, former chief of staff to ex-House Speaker Michael Madigan, was captured on dozens of undercover FBI recordings talking about his family, political fundraising and whether landing some job following his ouster in a 2018 sexual harassment scandal might “piss off the women.”
The conversations, described in a defense motion filed over the weekend seeking to keep them out of Mapes’ perjury trial next month, shed new light on the behind-the-scenes maneuvering and relationships among key members of Madigan’s inner circle as a series of scandals began to threaten the Democratic speaker’s decadeslong grip on power.
Mapes’ attorneys argued all or parts of the recordings are prejudicial, unusable hearsay or irrelevant, including one conversation from July 2018 in which Mapes and Michael McClain, the speaker’s longtime confidant, allegedly discussed everything from health issues and where they should grab a beer to an unspecified comment about former Chicago White Sox manager Tony La Russa supposedly holding news conferences in the nude.
Mapes, who has pleaded not guilty, is charged with lying to a grand jury in the federal probe that led to Madigan’s indictment last year in a far-reaching racketeering case. Madigan and McClain, a co-defendant in the Madigan case coming up next year, is alleged to have participated in an array of bribery and extortion schemes involving utility giants Commonwealth Edison and AT&T as well as a Chinatown land proposal in which Madigan wanted the property tax work for his private law firm.
Prosecutors want to play the recordings to show Mapes was lying when he testified he couldn’t recall what McClain’s role was on Madigan’s team, including that he acted as a go-between for the speaker.
Mapes’ attorney, Andrew Porter, is arguing the tapes involve numerous issues and parties that have nothing to do with the indictment against Mapes and could prejudice the jury.
The calls largely involve Mapes and McClain, a former Springfield lobbyist convicted in the ComEd Four bribery-related trial in May.
Among calls in question are conversations involving McClain talking with Madigan, the ex-speaker’s son and numerous political operatives. Federal authorities secretly recorded McClain for months and intend to use a portion of those calls in Mapes’ trial.
Mapes’ defense team argued the court should not allow McClain’s recorded conversations with Mapes’ family, such as with Mapes’ wife talking about her husband’s exercise routine and his inability to get a job. They also wanted to block conversations Mapes had with his son, who discussed in one call how his father was getting along only days after being ousted and another about McClain’s mother’s death. Prosecutors want to consider using the tape as a way to show the close relationship between McClain and Mapes.
The Mapes indictment has drawn particular attention because the former longtime Madigan chief of staff was given immunity to testify to the grand jury with the major caveat being he had to tell the truth — an agreement with which prosecutors contend Mapes did not comply.
But Mapes’ legal team also made clear it did not want prosecutors to dwell on sexual harassment scandals in the trial that it said are not relevant to the charges leveled against Mapes.
One of the calls they cited is a strategy session involving Mapes, Madigan and McClain. Others on the call included Will Cousineau, a longtime Madigan staffer turned lobbyist who testified with immunity in the ComEd Four case, Ald. Marty Quinn, who is Madigan’s hand-picked 13th Ward alderman, Heather Wier Vaught, a former top lawyer for Madigan, and Steve Brown, the speaker’s longtime spokesman.
Mapes’ lawyers wrote in the filing that the entire recording involves a “discussion among multiple people about whether to form a committee to investigate sexual harassment issues, what a committee might look like, and who might be on the committee. Mr. Mapes says hardly anything on the entire recording.”
“Mr. Mapes is not charged with lying or obstructing justice relative to sexual harassment issues in Springfield,” the Mapes lawyers wrote, saying the topic was a passing reference in Mapes’ grand jury appearance and was unrelated to the perjury allegations.
Prosecutors have identified the recording as a potential way to show McClain was doing tasks or assignments for Madigan — a point Mapes allegedly dodged in the grand jury.
The group discussion took place in April 2018, weeks before Madigan ousted Mapes from his long-held roles of chief of staff, House clerk and executive director of the Madigan-run state Democratic Party. Madigan took action to remove Mapes in June of that year after a longtime House staffer accused Mapes of sexual harassment over several years and fostering a “culture of sexism, harassment and bullying that creates an extremely difficult working environment.” Mapes has disputed the accusations.
One other call the Mapes team sought to keep out of his trial has Madigan’s son, Andrew, allegedly informing McClain that Mapes would be resigning because of the scandal and that Mapes was being removed to avoid being “a distraction.”
The call may help demonstrate part of the government’s case that McClain and the Madigans were so close they shared such information with each other. But Mapes’ weekend filing states the call is irrelevant and that McClain’s state of mind isn’t part of the trial.
Further, Mapes’ lawyers want to block a call Mapes had with McClain on the day Madigan cut Mapes loose. Prosecutors previously described a call that day as “deeply personal” in which McClain told Mapes he loved him and they discussed the “goofy accusations” made by a female staffer against Mapes that led to him leaving.
The Mapes departure came in a year in which Madigan faced a reckoning over #MeToo issues among his staff and political operatives.
In February 2018, Madigan ousted Kevin Quinn, brother of the 13th Ward alderman, over sexual harassment allegations made by campaign worker Alaina Hampton. The speaker quickly also booted lobbyist Shaw Decremer, a former government staffer, from his political operations over complaints of abusive behavior in House Democratic campaigns.
In late May 2018, Democrat state Rep. Lou Lang of Skokie stepped down from his House leadership post when a marijuana advocate accused him of sexual harassment — allegations he denied and were later deemed unfounded by the legislative inspector general. Testimony in the ComEd Four trial showed Lang resigned under pressure from McClain and Madigan when they learned another woman was considering coming forward over alleged issues with Lang if he kept his House seat.
Mapes’ filing also states he wants out of the trial a call between McClain and Andrew Madigan in which the two discussed Democratic state Rep. Sara Feigenholtz of Chicago, who is now a senator, allegedly commenting she was being “punished” for “driving” Hampton to hold a news conference about her sexual harassment allegations.
Hampton, in an interview Monday, said no politically connected person drove her to decide to hold a news conference, adding, “It was a decision I made myself and with my lawyers.”
In similar fashion, Mapes’ filing said he wants to block a call between McClain and Cousineau about inviting Feigenholtz to meetings to “de-escalate certain criticisms that Rep. Feigenholtz had made about how female legislators were treated by Speaker Madigan.”
The filing also described a discussion between McClain and Mapes about a breakfast meeting between Mapes and Anne Pramaggiore, former ComEd CEO who was later convicted in the ComEd Four case.
The Mapes conversation with Pramaggiore, long before she was indicted, included discussions “concerning a possible position at ComEd or Exelon,” ComEd’s parent company, according to the Mapes brief. The defense reported it would withdraw its objection to this recording, though Mapes still may want a few comments left out if prosecutors wish to present the recording to a jury.
Mapes also withdrew an objection to the overall conversation he had with McClain that included discussing Mapes’ career options following his ouster and whether someone hiring him would “piss off the women” following his own scandal.
Afternoon Briefing
“There are a handful of statements in the call — including the aforementioned statement about ‘piss(ing) off the women’ — that Mr. Mapes believes should be redacted,” the Mapes defense motion said, “but Mr. Mapes intends to meet and confer with the government on those issues in good faith.”
The July 2018 comment about La Russa being naked while talking to reporters comes without context or elaboration, but it is part of a list of topics in one conversation presented in the brief that Mapes’ lawyers considered inadmissible.
Other topics included discussions about McClain’s fundraising goals for the state Democratic Party and a McClain statement that he had “an assignment” to talk to then-Rep. Sam Yingling, a Grayslake Democrat, over whether the lawmaker intended to support Madigan in his bid to be reelected speaker after the fall 2018 election.
Prosecutors wish to use the recording to show Mapes knew McClain took assignments from Madigan despite alleged grand jury statements that raised questions for prosecutors.
But Mapes’ defense team said McClain “flippantly” used the word “assignment” in the conversation, and, even combined with discussions about Yingling, the conversation is “tantamount to a recording in which McClain says to Mapes, ‘I’m on an assignment to get Madigan a chicken sandwich.’ ”