CHICAGO — Jurors in Michael Madigan’s corruption trial on Monday heard a key wiretapped phone call in which the speaker’s longtime confidant told him about a plan to kick thousands of dollars to a loyal ward aide who was ousted after being accused of sexual harassment.

On the August 2018 call, Michael McClain tells Madigan he’d “put four or five people together that are willing to contribute to, uh, help with monthly things for the next six months like I mentioned to ya for Kevin Quinn,” the brother of Madigan’s handpicked 13th Ward alderman, Marty Quinn.

McClain then asks Madigan if he wanted to call the alderman first to let him know, or just stay out of it.

“Yeah — I think I oughta stay out of it,” Madigan says.

Minutes later, McClain called the alderman about the same topic and asked him similarly if he wanted to be briefed on the plan to help his brother: “Do you want to know anything or stay in the dark on that?”

“I’d rather stay in the dark,” Marty Quinn says.

The calls are central to allegations that Madigan knew about McClain’s efforts to recruit a few trusted people to pay Quinn $1,000 a month each for six months, or until he was able to find another job.

To throw off any IRS inquiries, McClain allegedly wanted Quinn to do a report on a group of legislators and city council members, writing up a paragraph or two on each about where they came from and things that most people might not know about them, according to evidence heard so far by the jury.

Prosecutors say the plan was part of the speaker’s office’s response to a burgeoning scandal sparked in early 2018 after a former campaign worker, Alaina Hampton, went public with allegations that Kevin Quinn had repeatedly sexually harassed her.

Prosecutors are presenting the fallout within the speaker’s political organization as evidence of the lengths that Madigan’s soldiers would go to protect the boss, and to show Madigan had the willingness and power to provide a soft landing for someone close to him who was in trouble. Hampton is expected on the witness stand sometime this week.

Attorneys for Madigan and McClain, meanwhile, have portrayed the episode as a private effort by McClain to help a friend.

To avoid prejudicing the jury, the judge has barred mention of the specific reason Quinn was cut loose. Instead, when the topic of testimony turned to Quinn last week, Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia Schwartz read a carefully sanitized stipulation that didn’t even mention Hampton’s involvement.

“In November 2017, Michael Madigan was informed of allegations of misconduct against Kevin Quinn,” she read. “As a result of these allegations, Kevin Quinn was terminated from his position in February 2018.”

On Monday, prosecutors played several other never-before-heard recordings in which McClain shopped his plan to the various parties, all of them utility lobbyists or Madigan loyalists whom he could trust to keep things quiet.

Eventually, McClain successfully signed up four people — John Bradley, Will Cousineau, Tom Cullen, and Michael Alvarez — to kick in $1,000 to $2,000 apiece per month, plus additional funds from himself.

On Aug. 30, 2018, McClain called Kevin Quinn to let him know the plan.

“It would be five or six grand a month that you don’t have now,” McClain said on the wiretapped call played Monday. “It’s just to give you a bridge, ya know….you’ll have a little cash in your pocket. Then during that six months you can land somewhere.”

“Sounds great,” Quinn says enthusiastically.

McClain then asked if he’s OK with the assignment, and assured him it wouldn’t involve any difficult work.

“What you have to do is like falling off a ladder,” McClain said. “You wouldn’t have any trouble doing that.”

“I’ll do whatever,” Quinn said. “I’m not above doing anything.”

Madigan, 82, of Chicago, who served for decades as speaker of the Illinois House and the head of the state Democratic Party, faces racketeering charges alleging he ran his state and political operations like a criminal enterprise, scheming with utility giants ComEd and AT&T to put his cronies on contracts requiring little or no work and using his public position to drum up business for his private law firm.

Both Madigan and McClain, 77, a former ComEd contract lobbyist from downstate Quincy, have pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

The trial is now in its fifth week and is expected to last until at least mid-December.

In other testimony Monday morning, jurors saw some of the evidence the FBI removed from Kevin Quinn’s Beverly home during the execution of a search warrant on May 14, 2019.

Among the items was a long, emotional letter from McClain announcing his retirement from lobbying in 2016, just days after a major piece of ComEd-friendly legislation had passed in Springfield.

“I have been a player in a wonderful life experience, starting as a public servant following my dad’s death in 1972 and then consulting and lobbying for entities that make Illinois a great state,” the typewritten letter read. “I hope I have offered value. I have enjoyed my professional life very much, and it is painful to close this chapter.”

At the bottom of the page, McClain added a handwritten note.

“I am NOT dying, so if I can ever help do not be hesitant to call,” it read. “Please stay in the foxhole with the Speaker!”

Also found in Quinn’s home were near-identical contracts, dated September 2018, between Quinn and some of the people whom McClain had allegedly persuaded to give Quinn low-effort work.

Prosecutors later displayed for the jury bank records showing that Quinn cashed checks from Bradley, Cullen, McClain, Alvarez, and the consulting firm that employed Cousineau.

The Tribune has previously reported that, in all, more than $30,000 in checks were sent to Quinn in 2018 in 2019 from Madigan’s allies.

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