CHICAGO — Former AT&T Illinois President Paul La Schiazza, who had been accused of bribing then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan in exchange for the 2017 passage of legislation backed by the telecom giant, is poised to see his charges dropped under an agreement with federal prosecutors.
La Schiazza on Tuesday entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the government that includes a $200,000 fine and his admission that he intended to bribe Madigan via a contract for the powerful speaker’s political ally.
The agreement cancels the retired executive’s retrial, which was set for January. But if La Schiazza commits any crimes or obtains any firearms within a year, it will be void.
U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman, who presided over La Schiazza’s September 2024 trial that ended in a hung jury, expressed mild amazement at the defendant’s deal during Tuesday’s hearing.
Read more: Jury deadlocks, mistrial declared in case of ex-AT&T boss accused of bribing Madigan
“This is a very generous agreement, I have to say,” Gettleman told La Schiazza, who appeared in court via videoconference from his home in Rhode Island. “I think it’s surprisingly generous.”
Nearly five months after Gettleman was forced to declare a mistrial after La Schiazza’s jury deadlocked, a separate jury weighing Madigan’s corruption trial also hung on the single AT&T-related charge in the former speaker’s case.
Gettleman declined to dismiss La Schiazza’s charges in December, but that was before a second jury expressed doubts about the feds’ AT&T allegations. The former telecom executive’s retrial was initially scheduled for June, but it was later delayed to January.
Read more: Judge won’t acquit former AT&T Illinois boss in Madigan bribery case after hung jury | Madigan guilty of bribery as split verdict punctuates ex-speaker’s fall
La Schiazza was charged with orchestrating a bribery scheme in which AT&T agreed to indirectly pay recently retired state Rep. Eddie Acevedo $22,500 over a nine-month period in 2017 after he asked Madigan to help him find lobbying work. While Acevedo collected a monthly check via former top Madigan staffer-turned-AT&T contract lobbyist Tom Cullen, the former lawmaker did no work for the company.
In exchange, the feds alleged Madigan allowed legislation that AT&T had been pushing for years to pass through the Illinois House. It eventually saved the company hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Acevedo was also one of five Madigan allies alleged to have done little to no work for electric utility Commonwealth Edison in a more wide-ranging and longer-lasting bribery scheme involving several ComEd-backed laws that proved lucrative to the company.
La Schiazza’s deferred prosecution agreement comes exactly three years after AT&T inked a similar deal with the government requiring the company to pay a $23 million fine admitting it sought to influence Madigan. The single charge against AT&T was dismissed in January.
On Tuesday, Gettleman told La Schiazza that if he abides by the conditions in his deferred prosecution agreement, the government would move to dismiss the charges in a year.
“But I am under no obligation to grant that motion,” the judge said. “You understand that sir? Even if I sign this agreement today.”
“I was unaware of that but I do understand what you just said,” La Schiazza replied.
Alleged scheme
In 2017, Illinois was one of only two states that still had 1930s-era laws on the books obligating AT&T to maintain its aging copper landline system. As landline customers began dropping precipitously, the costs to maintain the system kept increasing. The company wanted to be able to instead invest that money in newer technologies like broadband and wireless, as its competitors were free to do.
Throughout his trial, attorneys for La Schiazza maintained AT&T’s government affairs team had spent years on a sophisticated nationwide lobbying strategy and that AT&T Illinois executives got an initial legislative win in 2015, long before Acevedo’s contract.
But prosecutors emphasized La Schiazza’s verbiage in emails sent to his government affairs team. In a February 2017 note, La Schiazza informed colleagues he’d just heard from Springfield lobbyist Mike McClain, who had good news: Madigan assigned AT&T’s legislation to McClain as a “special project.”
“Game on,” La Schiazza wrote.
Left out of the email was McClain’s request two days before that to one of La Schiazza’s direct reports asking whether there was “even a small contract” at AT&T for Acevedo.
In an email to AT&T's internal lobbyists the next month directing them to hire Acevedo, La Schiazza wrote: “We did get the GO order ... Gotta love it!” Prosecutors said the “GO order” was from Madigan via McClain. In another email, La Schiazza approved of paying Acevedo through a subcontract “as long as you are sure we will get credit and the box checked,” which prosecutors alleged was further proof of a bribery agreement.
Complicating testimony
But the government’s narrative was challenged by testimony from former AT&T Illinois lobbyist Steve Selcke, who denied Acevedo’s contract was a bribe and that it had anything to do with AT&T’s legislation. After Selcke took the stand under an immunity agreement from the feds during La Schiazza’s trial, prosecutors dropped him from their witness list in Madigan’s trial, leaving defense lawyers free to call him.
Read more: Prosecution rests in Madigan trial as defense calls witness dropped from feds’ list
Selcke doubled down on his earlier testimony, though he did acknowledge Acevedo’s contract had “some degree of tangential impact because we didn’t want to rock the boat with the speaker’s office.” On cross-examination, Selcke read from a 2016 email he’d written to colleagues indicating McClain had previously thrown his weight to force AT&T to renew contracts with Madigan-connected lobbyists with whom the company wanted to cut ties. In the email, Selcke characterized McClain’s habit of interference as getting “folks crammed back down our throats.”
The feds’ presentation of AT&T-related evidence in Madigan’s trial also included calling Acevedo himself, over the objections of his attorney. Acevedo, who had to lean on a walker for support during his time in Madigan’s courtroom, has developed dementia in recent years and was confused several times during his time on the witness stand.
Acevedo's diminished appearance in front of the jury was a far cry from the person described during testimony as being so insulted by AT&T’s offer of a $2,500 per month contract that he later called Cullen to say, “F— AT&T, they can kiss my ass.” He later accepted the arrangement.
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
Acevedo and both of his sons, who also contracted with AT&T, all served short prison sentences for tax evasion related to their lobbying activities discovered during the feds’ sprawling investigation into Madigan.
During testimony, Acevedo said he “never asked anybody for a no-show job,” even contending he did work for AT&T, though other witnesses could not corroborate that claim. FBI call records showed no contact between Acevedo and La Schiazza during the nine months the former lawmaker was getting paid.
Read more: Former Madigan ally contradicts past statements after being ordered to testify
During Madigan’s trial, former top lawyers in the speaker’s office testified that their former boss was still skeptical of utilities even as he assigned them to negotiate legislation introduced by AT&T and ComEd. The ex-aides all noted they refused to give the utilities everything they wanted and testified that Madigan never pushed for the legislation himself.
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