AT&T Illinois, Legislative Misconduct, Illinois 2024

CHICAGO — Illinois Bell Telephone Company, LLC, which does business as AT&T Illinois, is facing serious allegations of legislative misconduct.

According to a federal investigation, AT&T Illinois arranged for payments to be made to an ally of former Illinois Speaker of the House Michael J. Madigan to influence and reward Madigan’s efforts to assist AT&T Illinois with respect to legislation sought by the company.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office has filed a one-count criminal information in U.S. District Court in Chicago charging AT&T Illinois with using an interstate facility to promote legislative misconduct.

Under a deferred prosecution agreement, the government will defer prosecution on the charge for two years and then seek to dismiss it if AT&T Illinois abides by certain conditions, including continuing to cooperate with any investigation related to the misconduct alleged in the information.

The deferred prosecution agreement requires AT&T Illinois to pay $23 million to the federal Crime Victims Fund.

AT&T Illinois’s admissions regarding the charged conduct are contained in a Statement of Facts attached to the deferred prosecution agreement. AT&T Illinois admitted that in 2017 it arranged for an ally of Madigan to indirectly receive $22,500 in payments from the company.

The company paid the money through an intermediary – a lobbying firm that performed services for AT&T Illinois. Although AT&T Illinois employees formulated a pretextual assignment for Madigan’s ally to disguise why the ally was being paid, the ally performed no actual work for AT&T Illinois and the company made no effort to ensure any work was performed.

AT&T Illinois acknowledged in the agreement that AT&T Illinois’s then-president used an interstate facility to facilitate Madigan’s indirect receipt of a thing of value, namely the payments made to his ally, in exchange for Madigan’s vote and influence over a bill.

The charge and the deferred prosecution agreement were announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Ashley T. Johnson, Acting Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI; and Justin Campbell, Special Agent-in-Charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division in Chicago.

The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Amarjeet S. Bhachu, Diane MacArthur, Timothy J. Chapman, Sarah E. Streicker, Michelle Kramer, and Julia Schwartz.