From The Chicago Sun-Times:

FBI targets Madigan papers

September 18, 2002

BY DAVE MCKINNEY SUN-TIMES SPRINGFIELD BUREAU

SPRINGFIELD--Federal investigators have subpoenaed House Speaker Michael Madigan for documents relating to tax-funded bonuses he awarded to his staff, including some who were later assigned to Lisa Madigan's attorney general campaign.

The new disclosure Tuesday of another subpoena to the speaker came at the same time federal investigators appear to be focusing on how the city's top police union conducted its endorsements, which may include one that went to Lisa Madigan in her contested primary last spring.

The president of Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police lodge told the Sun-Times on Tuesday that he and about seven or eight other current or former board members have been asked by the FBI for interviews to talk about the group's endorsement process.

FOP President Mark Donahue said his organization was not told by the FBI anything more specific.

"It's apparently over endorsements that have been made, and that's about all that we have been told," Donahue said. "I'm really not aware of what the questioning is about because I haven't spoken to them yet. That has been set up with our attorney, and we're considering speaking to them in the near future."

The FOP's endorsement of Lisa Madigan in the March primary came under question when an unnamed union official was quoted in a published report suggesting she was chosen because of worries her father could shanghai the union's legislative agenda in Springfield.

The new subpoena to the speaker's office occurred last month but was revealed publicly for the first time Tuesday by a key aide to the Southwest Side political leader. Besides seeking documents about staff bonuses, the feds also sought records about Madigan's deployment of staffers into contested legislative races, including during the 2000 campaign cycle.

"They asked for records, and we gave them records," said the speaker's spokesman, Steve Brown.

That subpoena, which came on the heels of Attorney General Jim Ryan turning over allegations against the speaker to the U.S. attorney's office in July, is the second directed at Speaker Madigan's office. Last spring, a federal grand jury sought records from his office relating to a labor dispute he and his staff allegedly intervened in at Eastern Illinois University.

Brown said the records turned over in the latest subpoena covered a period from "several years ago" through the first of this year. Earlier this year the Sun-Times was the first to report on sizable staff bonuses doled out by the speaker in 2001.

In all, Madigan gave at least $130,000 in bonuses last year to dozens of top aides, including $35,000 to chief of staff Timothy Mapes on top of his $129,468 salary.

The Sun-Times also reported that $97,000 in bonuses went to 25 of Madigan's staffers just months and, in some cases, days before they took leave from the state payroll to work on the attorney general campaign of Lisa Madigan and other Democratic candidates.

Questioned last month at the Illinois State Fair, the speaker adamantly defended the awarding of the bonuses, even leaving open the possibility he would grant more. Madigan also stood his ground on the legality of using his staffers when on leave to work in legislative races.

"It's all a bunch of baloney," the speaker said. "Mike Madigan follows the law. Mike Madigan sat down with his lawyers before he did bonuses, before he did the in-district program, to make sure they were legal."

Neither development is good news for Lisa Madigan's campaign, which has been on the defensive about her father's involvement in her race first against Democrat John Schmidt and now against Republican Joe Birkett.

During the primary, Schmidt aired a television commercial raising questions about whether the FOP union endorsement was somehow orchestrated by the speaker--a charge both he and his daughter have denied.

Former FOP President William Nolan, who has not been contacted by the FBI, even staged a press conference to rebut the charges. Nolan has since left the police union and is now working in the office of Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan, a staunch ally of the speaker. On Tuesday, he refused to comment on the lodge endorsement of Lisa Madigan.

Meanwhile, her campaign stood by the legitimacy of the FOP endorsement she received in the primary from the Chicago lodge and the subsequent backing she received recently from the Illinois Federation of Police.

"The Chicago FOP endorsed Lisa Madigan for the same reason the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police has endorsed Lisa Madigan in the general election. Law enforcement officers feel she is the best person to be Illinois' next attorney general," Madigan spokeswoman Melissa Merz said.

"It's a sad day when Republican political operatives question the integrity of our police officers," she said.