On Monday, February 12, 2024, a federal judge in Chicago sentenced Tim Mapes to 30 months in prison. Mapes, a former chief of staff to disgrace Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, bagged the two-and-a-half-year sentence for lying under oath.
The former aide lied to a federal grand jury to protect his once-powerful boss from public corruption charges. US District Judge John F. Kness imposed the sentence on Mapes. Before his sentencing, a Chicago District Court convicted Mapes of making false declarations before a grand jury in August 2023.
In addition, the court convicted him on one count of obstruction of justice. US District Judge John Kness said he struggled to understand why Mapes was in this situation. According to reports, the jury granted Mapes immunity in the investigation into his former boss. However, as long as he told the truth.
“This is a very sad case to me,” Judge Kness said at the hearing. “Because I don’t understand why you did what you did.” “You were immunized in the grand jury,” the federal judge added. “And all you had to do was go in there and tell the truth.”
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Furthermore, Kness speculated that Mapes’ actions were due to a sense of loyalty to his former boss. “You knew what you were doing when you went into the grand jury, and you lied,” Kness stated. “Perhaps this was out of some sense of loyalty, but if that’s the case, your loyalty was greatly misguided.”
The federal judge added, “You knew the testimony was false. I can’t ignore that finding.” According to a local news outlet, Mapes will report to prison in mid-June to begin his sentence. However, he reportedly has 14 days to appeal the sentence.
The judge’s 30-month sentence is shy of the five years prosecutors wanted. However, it’s more than the probation that the defense attorneys requested. Kness said in the trial that, in determining the sentence, he took Mapes’s age into account.
Prosecutors told jurors that Mapes lied repeatedly when he testified in 2021 to a grand jury investigating Madigan and others. They alleged Mapes lied when he claimed he couldn’t recall any relevant details about Madigan’s ties to Michael McClain.
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Also, one witness told jurors that Madigan, Mapes, and McClain formed a triumvirate, with Madigan at its head. The witness claimed they controlled which bills got through the legislative body in the Illinois House for years.
Government evidence included wiretapped phone recordings and audio of Mapes testifying before the grand jury. “He did everything he could to obstruct the process,” prosecutor Julia Schwartz said of Mapes during closing arguments.
Tim Mapes had a high-profile job before his testimony and subsequent sentencing. He was the gatekeeper to the powerful state House Speaker and an executive director of the Democratic Party of Illinois.
However, Mapes resigned in 2018 amid a sexual harassment scandal and concerns about his handling of the allegations. Hence, defense attorney Andrew Porter claimed Tim Mapes had no motivation to lie to protect Madigan. “Why would he fall on his sword for a guy who kicked him to the curb three years before?” Porter asked.
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