CHICAGO — Attorneys for Michael Madigan opened their final bid to persuade jurors of his innocence by hearkening back to a memorable nickname for the former House speaker: the Sphinx.

“The Sphinx is, of course, a mythical creature,” attorney Dan Collins said Friday in closing arguments. “Quiet, mysterious. A myth. In this case, ladies and gentlemen, the government sees the myth. They do not see the man.”

The defense throughout Madigan’s marathon public corruption trial has tried to portray Madigan as a hardworking and humble Southwest Sider who only ever sought to help people through his role at the top of the Illinois political power structure. To reinforce the regular-guy image, Collins on Friday repeatedly referred to his client not as the speaker, not as Mr. Madigan, but as “Mike.”

“The government depends on your cynicism, the cynicism that we have around our public officials,” Collins said. “The government has put forth what seems at first blush to be a very polished presentation, but it’s incomplete. It’s misleading. And on the most important points, it’s false.”

Collins addressed jurors after prosecutors’ extraordinarily lengthy closing argument, which wrapped up Friday morning after more than 10 hours over three days. Collins’ argument is expected to stretch into Monday, after which arguments will begin for Madigan’s co-defendant, longtime confidant Michael McClain.

In wrapping up her argument Friday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane MacArthur called former House Speaker Michael Madigan “the man calling the shots,” a supremely powerful politician who for years used his roles as an elected official, leader of the state Democratic Party, and private lawyer to advance a criminal enterprise focused on private gain.

MacArthur told the jury Madigan and McClain worked in concert, “used and abused their positions” to “maintain Madigan’s power and acquire profit for his personal gain.”

“For Madigan and McClain, the corrupt way was the way it was, the way it continued to be,” MacArthur said. “But that is not the way the law says it can be.”

Madigan, 82, a Southwest Side Democrat, and McClain, 77, a longtime lobbyist from downstate Quincy, are charged in a 23-count indictment alleging that Madigan’s vaunted state and political operations were run like a criminal enterprise to increase his power and enrich himself and his associates.

In addition to alleging the plans to pressure developers, the indictment accuses Madigan and McClain of long-running bribery schemes involving ComEd and AT&T Illinois.

The trial, which began Oct. 8 and is finally inching toward a conclusion, represents the apex of a lengthy federal corruption investigation that has already resulted in convictions of several other Madigan-adjacent figures over the past few years. Madigan, however, is inarguably the biggest target.

Collins is expected to wrap up his closing argument on Monday, followed by McClain’s attorney and a rebuttal from prosecutors. Jurors likely will not start deliberating until Wednesday at the earliest.

Over and over, Collins accused the government of cherry-picking facts to fit a narrative that just doesn’t exist, and urged the jury to look at all of the evidence in context, “not misshaped puzzle pieces being shoved together.”

Collins also repeatedly dismissed certain allegations by the government as lacking common sense, often ending a point with a pronounced “Nuh-uh.”

Collins highlighted some of the key jury instructions in the case, including one stating that Madigan’s association “with persons involved in a crime is not enough” to find him guilty unless prosecutors prove he had knowledge of the illegal activity. Another instruction said job recommendations tendered by a public official “without more” are not unlawful.

But perhaps most importantly, Collins said, is that the jury must find Madigan acted “corruptly,” meaning there was an agreement to exchange a thing of value for official action.

Collins used the appointment of Juan Ochoa to ComEd’s board as an example. Jesse Ruiz decided to run for office and a slot opened up, he said. It was a regular part of ComEd’s business to find a replacement. Ochoa got picked after receiving the recommendations of not only Madigan, but also Mayor Rahm Emanuel and then-U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez. Ochoa did the job and got paid for it.

“That is a bona fide position,” Collins said. “That is not a bribe.”

Collins noted also that the law says that “vague expectations of some future benefit” are not sufficient to prove bribery.

“It’s gotta be a this-for-that,” he said, using the English version of the Latin quid pro quo. “If you’re a public official and you know that somebody has done something for you and you believe that they are doing that to promote goodwill with you, that’s not a crime … You’re not guilty and we go home.”

Collins spent much of Friday afternoon telling jurors about the sole count in the indictment involving AT&T Illinois. Prosecutors have alleged Madigan and McClain schemed to get a no-work AT&T subcontract for ex-state Rep. Eddie Acevedo in exchange for Madigan’s help passing an AT&T-friendly bill known as COLR relief.

But, Collins said, a broad look at the timeline shows no real connection there. AT&T got some of their other favored legislation passed in the years before there was any notion of getting Acevedo a contract, he noted.

By weighing in early with arguments about the Acevedo matter, Collins also hoped to indicate that it made no sense for a veteran politician like Madigan to get behind a piece of legislation so valuable to AT&T based on a minor thing like a low-level contract.

And while McClain did reach out asking AT&T brass for a contract for Acevedo, it took more than a month for AT&T officials to really act on that request, Collins noted.

“Under the government’s theory, AT&T saw this as this is a chance to finally get COLR over … and they sat on it for a month and a half?” he said. “Nah. Nuh-uh. That makes no sense.”

And while AT&T was negotiating a contract with Acevedo and scrambling to keep it secret from Capitol Republicans, Madigan “doesn’t know this is going on,” Collins said, walking over to stand near Madigan at the defense table.

“Not one bit of it,” Collins said. “He has no idea that the internal folks at AT&T don’t want Republicans to find out … to talk about concealment and suggest Mike Madigan took a bribe because of it, you’re wrong. (He) doesn’t even know what’s going on.”

Collins also pointed to an internal AT&T email stating that, when discussing the offer, Acevedo asked if he would be required to travel to the capitol.

“The government’s theory is this was a no-show job. Eddie is asking if he needs to travel to Springfield – he contemplates doing work – this was not a no-show offer,” Collins said.

In the end there were multiple interrelated factors that influenced whether the COLR legislation passed, Collins said.

MacArthur on Friday focused her argument on the top count in the indictment, the racketeering conspiracy. Using a slide titled “The Enterprise,” she said it consisted of two people, Madigan and McClain, and three entities: The Office of the Speaker, the 13th Ward Democratic Organization, and Madigan & Getzendanner.

Later, McArthur showed another slide that put Madigan at the top of the enterprise, calling him “the man in charge.”

The enterprise, MacArthur said, involved Madigan and McClain “performing a whole spectrum of acts, some legal and a lot illegal.”

“We’re not saying that everything they did was corrupt.” she said. “The legal part of that involved people knocking on doors, trying to get their vote. The illegal part involved the bribes.”

The indictment focuses on three goals: Enhancing Madigan’s power, rewarding allies for loyalty, and generating income through illegal activities.

MacArthur said it was Madigan’s power over legislation that induced companies like ComEd to hire his associates, many as do-nothing consultants.

“The granting of this type of reward on his political workers encouraged and rewarded loyalty and it gave those workers compensation for little or no work,” she said.

Through it all, McClain was there acting as Madigan’s self-proclaimed “agent,” MacArthur said, briefing him on the progress of assignments and performing the dirty work that the speaker didn’t want to have to do himself.

MacArthur said Madigan’s testimony earlier this month that he only trusted McClain “sometimes” was misleading.

“You know from the evidence McClain was not the ‘sometimes’ person, he was the ‘always’ person when it came to the sensitive tasks, the hard calls, the ‘bad news’ calls that had to be made,” she said.

One of the best examples of McClain acting as Madigan’s agent was the situation with then-state Rep. Lou Lang, where the speaker enlisted his confidant to “lower the boom” and ask for his resignation amid the threat of sexual harassment allegations going public.

MacArthur asked jurors to consider the “extraordinary power” bestowed on McClain by the speaker.

“This shows you McClain was not freelancing here, he was not going rogue,” MacArthur said. “This was coordinated…Madigan had power, he could do what he wanted, and he used McClain to carry it out.”

MacArthur also told the jury to consider the “sense of entitlement” that Madigan and McClain had when it came to companies like ComEd being at their beck and call.

To illustrate her point, MacArthur played a wiretapped recording between McClain and the speaker’s son, Andrew Madigan, where McClain griped about a Peoples Gas executive complaining about having to make a political hire.

““They’re in a regulatory body, right?” McClain said as Andrew Madigan laughed. “And they’re offended if people ask for favors. Hello? Dumb sh–s.”

MacArthur said the “sense of entitlement” of Madigan and McClain “permeates this case,” where they see utilities like ComEd as “benefit fulfillment centers” who should give them what they want simply because they need legislation in Springfield.

MacArthur also played a call from May 16, 2018, that she says perfectly illustrates the enterprise in action. It started with the two strategizing over gaming legislation and whether Madigan should “lift the brick” on it, which MacArthur said was “perfectly legal.”

But then they shifted to ComEd, talking about pushback from the utility on putting Madigan’s recommendation, Juan Ochoa, on its board of directors, and how incoming CEO Joe Dominguez couldn’t be trusted.

Madigan said, there was a request from then-U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez to see him and he thought it might be about Ochoa. “Mike my recommendation is go forward with Ochoa,” Madigan said. “So if the only complaint about Ochoa is that he suffers from bankruptcy twice so did Harry Truman.”

“I’ve offered to go rogue and go see Chris Crane myself,” McClain says. Then they shift to AT&T’s small cell bill and the Chinatown land transfer.

“That’s still moving along,” McClain says about Chinatown. “Um, in fact, on my list today is to call Nancy Kimme to find out, uh, if she’s ever got the legal description language.”

MacArthur said the call encompasses all of the illegal racketeering acts going on at that time, which she had listed on a PowerPoint slide.

“One day, one call and all of those topics listed on the screen were covered,” she said.

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