Good afternoon, Chicago.
AT&T Illinois had tried for years to win powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan’s support for a bill ending mandated landline service, but it wasn’t until the company’s president agreed to secretly pay thousands of dollars to a Madigan associate for a do-nothing contract that the deal got done, federal prosecutors told a jury today.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is a case about a corporate executive paying off the most powerful politician in Illinois to help pass his company’s prized piece of legislation,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Mower said in his opening statement in the bribery trial of former AT&T Illinois President Paul La Schiazza.
The trial is the latest chapter in the blockbuster federal investigation of Madigan and his once-vaunted 13th Ward political operation, a probe that helped put an end to Madigan’s record run as both the leader of the House and the state Democratic Party.
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