Michael Madigan, the longest-serving legislative leader in US history, has been sentenced to 7.5 years in prison over corruption during his years as speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives. The 83-year-old Democrat was also fined $2.5 million. Madigan was indicted in 2022 and convicted in February on charges including conspiracy, bribery, and wire fraud. Federal prosecutors said Madigan led a "criminal enterprise whose purpose was to enhance Madigan's political power and financial well-being while also generating income for his political allies and associates," the New York Times reports.
Madigan, who left office in 2021, was speaker for almost 40 years and was chair of the Illinois Democratic Party for more than 20 years. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Madigan is due to start serving "one of the harshest public corruption sentences Chicago has seen in years" on Oct. 13, though he could remain free during appeals. "I ask that you let me spend my final days with my family," Madigan said during Friday's sentencing hearing, requesting that the judge let him stay home to care for his wife.
US District Judge John Robert Blakey, however, said Madigan had engaged in "a nauseating display of perjury and evasion" when he took the stand in his own defense, the AP reports. "You lied. You did not have to. You had a right to sit there and exercise your right to silence," Blakey said. "But you took the stand and you took the law into your own hands." Assistant US Attorney Sarah Streicker said Madigan had not shown remorse. He "had every opportunity to set the standard for honest government" in a state long plagued by corruption, but instead "he fit right into the mold of yet another corrupt leader in Illinois," Streicker said. (More Michael Madigan stories.)
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