Tim Mapes, former aide to Speaker Michael Madigan, sentenced to 2 1/2 years for lying to federal grand jury

Tim Mapes, who for years served as the abrasive and sharp-tongued chief of staff to House Speaker Michael Madigan, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison Monday for lying to a federal grand jury investigating his boss.

In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge John Kness said he struggled at a fundamental level to understand how Mapes found himself in this position.

“This is a very sad case to me because I don’t understand why you did what you did,” Kness said. “You were immunized in the grand jury and all you had to do was go in there and tell the truth.”

Kness likened it to the mafia concept of “omerta,” the concept “that you don’t rat on your friends.”

“You knew what you were doing when you went into the grand jury and you lied,” Kness said. “I don’t know why you did this. Perhaps this was out of some sense of loyalty, but if that’s the case your loyalty was greatly misguided.”

In rejecting a request by the defense for probation, the judge said he cannot ignore the need to send a message to the general about public corruption, given that two governors recently went to prison and Mapes’ boss is currently under federal indictment.

“The people of the state cry out for accountability,” the judge said.

The three-hour hearing punctuated a stunning downfall for Mapes, who in addition to his role as Madigan’s chief gatekeeper was also the executive director of the Madigan-run Democratic Party of Illinois and clerk of the House before he was abruptly forced to resign in 2018 amid a sexual harassment scandal.

Before the sentence was handed down, Mapes, sporting a shaved head and dressed in a blue suit and burgundy tie, read a statement to the court saying he was proud of his accomplishments and “humbled and remorseful” for his actions.

“For 30 years, I tried my best to serve the people of the state of Illinois,” Mapes said, reading from a sheet of paper. “I never intended to be anything but a public servant … I tried in ways big and small to live my life as a good man.”

Mapes talked about his successes, particularly making the legislative trains run on time and a decades-long effort to improve access for the handicapped at the Capitol. “Our efforts tried to make life better for the citizens of Illinois,” he said.

Mapes also said he knows many people in Illinois “have lost faith in their government and that breaks my heart.”

“It is contrary to everything I have tried to do in my career, and it brings me sorrow,” he said.

Mapes’ voice broke a little when he talked about his legal troubles being hard on his ageing father, who is still working their farm in western Illinois.

The courtroom audience included three former House lawmakers: Joe Lyons, who often served as acting speaker and worked from the podium closely with Mapes during legislative debates; George Scully, a former House committee chairman overseeing electric issues and later served as a Cook County judge; and Coy Pugh, a longtime lobbyist and former state representative.

Outside of the courtroom, Scully said the jury decided Mapes had committed the acts he was accused of, but that “he is still my friend.”

Prosecutors had asked for up to about five years in prison for Mapes, arguing in a recent court filing that Mapes’ lies “were calculated to thwart the government’s sprawling investigation of a series of unlawful schemes calculated to corrupt the government of this state at the highest levels.”

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Diane MacArthur and Julia Schwartz wrote in their filing that when a seasoned public servant like Mapes “makes the calculated and deliberate decision to lie in the grand jury, the criminal justice system, and our entire democracy, is threatened.”

They asked Kness to impose a sentence of 51 to 63 months in prison.

Mapes’ attorneys, meanwhile, asked in a filing of their own for a sentence of probation and community service, arguing Mapes never stood to personally benefit from any of his alleged misstatements and that while he accepts the jury’s verdict he “disagrees with it and continues to maintain his innocence.”

“Tim Mapes is a good man,” defense attorneys Andrew Porter and Katie Hill wrote “… He has spent decades working very hard (and expecting it of others) trying to make the State of Illinois better, fairer, and more compassionate to its citizens.”

Despite Mapes’ reputation among some in Springfield as a power-hungry bully, the defense filing characterized him as a down-to-earth family man who rose from humble beginnings and was always “looking out for the little guy.”

The defense also submitted dozens of letters to the judge from Mapes’ family, friends and former colleagues describing him as a mentor, someone who would always go out of his way to help others, even when no one was looking.

“He does so not for any reward, but because he believes it is the right thing to do,” Mapes’ lawyers said.

The letters were filed under seal, so the identities of the authors could not be determined. But several purportedly came from colleagues on the former speaker’s staff, including one that claimed the media mischaracterized Mapes’ now-infamous “No One Gets in to See the Wizard” sign, which was displayed in his office and was widely seen as a hallmark of his role as Madigan’s loyal gatekeeper.

The sign, which was a gift from then-state Senate President John Cullerton, “was meant to throw some humor on the impossible nature of the job Tim had, not some pronouncement of power as the media portrayed it,” stated the letter writer, described in the filing as a former colleague who had worked with Mapes for decades and retired in 2014.

On Sunday, prosecutors objected to the letters remaining under seal, writing that a “significant number” of them are from current and former elected officials, including a congressman, as well as employees of state government and, in one case, a sitting state appellate judge.

“If there is any case for which public disclosure is warranted and appropriate, it this one, given the interplay between the defendant’s status as a public official and the nature of the underlying grand jury investigation,” the filing stated.

At the outset of the hearing Monday, Kness sided with prosecutors, saying he could not “see anything in the law that tells me I have to place all of these letters under seal.”

“There is a strong presumption of public access,” Kness said. “I think that the public has a right to know who wrote letters on Mr. Mapes’ behalf and what they had to say about him.”

The judge said he would allow the defense time to redact sensitive information like addresses, phone numbers, minors’ names, and any particularly personal anecdotes, so the letters did not become public Monday.

Mapes, 69, was convicted at trial in August of perjury and attempted obstruction of justice charges alleging he lied to a grand jury in 2021 in a failed attempt to protect Madigan from a widening political corruption investigation.

When he went in for his interview, Mapes had been immunized by the U.S. attorney’s office, meaning he could not be prosecuted for what he said as long as it was the truth.

In its decision, the jury found Mapes had lied on every occasion alleged by prosecutors in the indictment, which consisted mostly of a series of “I don’t recall” answers to questions about “assignments” Madigan was giving to his longtime confidant, Michael McClain.

The jury’s swift verdict was the latest in a string of convictions stemming from the federal investigation into Madigan’s once-vaunted political operation.

In May 2023, McClain was found guilty along with three others in a bribery conspiracy to funnel payments from Commonwealth Edison to Madigan associates in hopes of gaining the speaker’s influence over the utility’s legislative agenda in Springfield.

Madigan lost the speakership and resigned his House seat in 2021, a year before being indicted along with McClain in a separate racketeering case alleging Madigan sold his political office for personal gain. That trial is set to begin in October.

Mapes spent years as Madigan’s chief of staff and executive director of the state Democratic Party, when, as the speaker’s premier gatekeeper, he strode the halls of power with an almost autocratic style. He also served as the clerk of the House, where he was known as a details-driven micromanager adept at keeping the legislative trains running.

Madigan unceremoniously dumped Mapes from all three positions in June 2018 after a staffer accused him of sexual harassment, during a year in which the #MeToo movement cost the careers of several Madigan allies.

In Mapes’ trial, Madigan, McClain and Mapes were described as the major players in a triangle of power that held sway over the longtime speaker’s Democratic House caucus, government operations and major grip on statewide politics.

Mapes’ attorneys argued at trial that Mapes did his “level best” to provide truthful answers in his grand jury testimony. They also accused prosecutors of asking open-ended questions and failing to provide Mapes with corroborating materials that might refresh his recollection of years-old conversations.

A slew of Democratic Springfield insiders lined up to testify for the prosecution, describing McClain as one of Madigan’s closest advisers, who had served with Madigan in the state legislature decades ago and had singular access to the speaker as a lobbyist for ComEd.

It was also well known around the Capitol that McClain continued to do sensitive work for the speaker after McClain’s retirement from lobbying in 2016, according to testimony.

Prosecutors also played for the jury multiple wiretapped calls where Mapes was captured talking with McClain about issues he claimed in the grand jury to know little or nothing about.

Among them was a Madigan-orchestrated plan to dump then-state Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, who was potentially facing sexual harassment allegations. On one call from Oct. 31, 2018, McClain told Mapes he was going to wait until a batch of Lang’s fundraising checks cleared, “And then I gotta tell him that he’s gotta move on. That he has no future in the House.”

“Will you be wearing your big boy pants that day?” Mapes asked, laughing.

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