Chicago Sun-Times federal courts reporter Jon Seidel joined Springfield's Morning News to discuss the verdict in the Madigan case, reactions to the split decision, and where we go from here.
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This guy should be put on salary or something over here for all the times he's been on the radio with me the last few months. John Seidel, federal courts reporter for the Chicago Sun-Times, joins us. John, good morning. How are you, buddy?

Good morning. I'm doing okay. How are you? We're both fighting the voice this morning. Exactly. It's not radio voice theater here or anything. It's February. We're just getting by. I didn't have a chance, obviously, since I've been out the last couple of days, haven't had a chance to catch up with you yet. Let's get your reaction to what you saw and heard in the split decision in the Madigan and McClain cases.

I mean, a big trial like this just ends in dramatic and complicated fashion. I mean, who would have everything about this trial has been unpredictable. And here we are with this verdict. I mean, coming, you know, we got this note from the jury. They said they

had reached an agreement on, on some, but couldn't reach an agreement on, on all. And, you know, usually we see the judge and prosecutors want them to try a little bit harder. And right out of the gate, I think this is because this jury had tried so hard. They were at 60 plus hours of deliberations at this point. And, uh, Amar Bachu, the one of the lead prosecutors said that they're, they were open to taking the partial verdict. They were ready to hear what the jury had to say. And, um,

I remember I was really ready for anything in that moment with that count one, that racketeering conspiracy count.

But I guess I didn't really expect no verdict, right? Like we were ready. And from there, it's just kind of like, okay, you know, like this is not going to be so many of these trials. You know, we know how they tend to end, you know, so many guilty verdicts. But right out of the gate, count one, no decision. And then count two, you know, they found him guilty. That same comment, bribery conspiracy for which Michael McClain and others had been convicted in 2023, Michael McClain,

Michael Madigan is now convicted of that. He's also convicted of one scheme involving Danny Solis, but acquitted on another. And then there's no verdict on the other. So it was just

Really fascinating to see the way this came down. I think some reflections are that, you know, the jurors, I think everyone seems to agree, did their job. They didn't take the government at its word. They were skeptical and they thought this through. They did reach a conclusion on many counts. From all that I've heard, they got along well in the jury room. It wasn't like screaming and yelling or anything. There was just healthy debate.

I want to give a mention, too, to Madigan's attorneys. That's a feat. He walked out of there without a racketeering conspiracy conviction and without a conviction on many of the counts. This was a hard-fought trial, and I think that's reflected there. I don't know that that makes Madigan himself feel much better, but that's certainly an achievement for his attorneys. But also, at the end of the day,

prosecutors have him now, he's a convicted felon, you know, facing significant prison time. And we'll see what they do as far as a retrial or just going forward with sentencing. John Seidel from the Chicago Sun-Times joins us here on 92.7 WMAY. For those that don't, I've had a hard time describing this. What's your best way of describing the racketeering charge? What does that actually mean?

Well, what that means, so racketeering in general is that basically there's a criminal enterprise has been formed to achieve certain goals, you know, certain goals through criminal acts.

In this case, what prosecutors said the criminal enterprise was, was it was made up of the Speaker's office, I believe the 13th Ward Organization, so Madigan's political positions, and his position, well, the law firm of Madigan and Getzendaner, which was Madigan's private tax appeals law firm. Now, prosecutors stressed during closing arguments that

Those, they can exist for lawful purposes. They weren't trying to argue that everything the Speaker's office did or that Madigan and Getz and Dayner did was illegal, but they were arguing that they did come together to commit criminal acts in order to enhance Madigan's political power, reward his allies, and enhance his own financial well-being. Again, through a series of crimes. And they said Madigan was the leader of that enterprise and McClain was the agent. But again, just to be clear,

no conviction the jury did not agree on that one way or another what was the mood in the courtroom i mean what did you notice from madigan as i mean he's usually pretty stoic but but obviously you see a 40 some year run in politics come to an end and and with a with a conviction and and certainly he's not a guy that's used to losing uh in anything i mean what was his reaction

You know, Michael Madsen did a very good job near the end of this trial of kind of finding a hiding spot behind some computer monitors. But I had another colleague in the courtroom, in another area of the courtroom, who had a good view of him. And my understanding is that he just kind of like looked down at the ground as the verdict was being read.

There was an occasional slight nod of his head as the verdicts came through. You know, he's smart. He followed this. I'm sure he knew what each count meant, right? It's not like they say...

you know, what the charges and what, what the allegation is as they read the counts count one, no verdict count two guilty, but he knows what this is. So I'm sure he was following along very well. Um, you know, um, but behind that, I think he was the typical Mike Madigan. We all know not a ton of reaction. There wasn't an outcry. Uh, the mood in the courtroom was, I think everybody knew this was a very serious moment. Um, no matter how

how, what, what perspective you were coming to from this case. And it also unusual in that this started with this note from the jury about the struggle they were having. And then prosecutors said they were open to the parcel verdict and that courtroom filled up pretty quickly. And at that point, we didn't even officially have that verdict, you know, that they had to send a note back to the jury saying that's fine and wait to get that verdict back from them. But before that,

official word even came, that courtroom was packed. It was really interesting to hear the foreman talk about he felt like the government kind of went too far or overreached a little bit, maybe specifically with the Chinatown thing and the AT&T thing. How do you think that went over? Was that the G not proving their case, or was that Madigan's attorneys being able to poke holes in it?

Well, I think probably both. I mean, at the end of the day, when it came to Chinatown and AT&T, there was no decision. So no, prosecutors didn't prove their case. And that probably had a lot to do with the work of Madigan's defense attorneys. And I it's hard. I have a feeling this verdict would have turned out differently had he not taken the stand. I don't know. That's all speculation. Nobody will ever know. But, you know, I think he would have lost more.

Maybe. I don't know. I mean, I think, you know, from the moment he took the stand, my read on it was that he did that because the thing was important for them to hear from him. And I think that Jerry Foreman has said in interviews that, you know, while they didn't really –

buy what he said about Michael McClain and kind of having a, you know, hands off a distant relationship almost with McClain. They didn't really buy that. But there was, I think for the most part, they, they kind of believed what he was, he was trying to say. And,

with the state board schemes, uh, state board seat scheme that he was convicted of, um, you know, the foreman talked about Danny Solis and how he saw Danny Solis as a dirty operator. Um,

And this did seem to be an effective part of the cross-examination of Madigan by Amir Batu, how even after Danny Solis said the words quid pro quo, Madigan kept going on and dealing with Solis and was even willing to recommend him for a state board seat. And the foreman said, like, you know, if you're willing to do that for a dirty operator like Danny Solis, that's not fair to the people of Illinois. And he said he just had to vote guilty on that.

Before we let you go, John, the government can retry Madigan and McClain on these hung verdicts, including the wire fraud and the racketeering. There's a lot of politics in play here, too, because there's going to be a new U.S. attorney at some point who would come from a Republican administration. What's the sense? Have they given any indication as to how they might approach retrying Madigan on any of these?

They really haven't, but I guess I'd be surprised if they do. I could be wrong, but they have him guilty on 10 counts. And you're right. Things are changing, you know, and we also will have to see what happens with Michael McClain and the previous combat conviction that could or could not lead to another trial. So we'll just have to see. I suspect they're done trying Madigan, though. And when's the forfeiture hearing?

May 5th. May 5th. We'll talk to you ahead of that, my friend, because that's really complicated, too. I owe you a ton. Our listeners owe you a ton, John Seidel. You don't get paid for this, and you should. Thank you, my friend, for all of your help during this trial, and I hope you get to go on vacation or something, because it's been a long few months for you. I appreciate that. Happy to do it. I hope you feel better.