Mapes Case To See Massive Amounts of Discovery Evidence

By Benjamin Cox on July 22, 2021 at 8:53am

Federal investigators are set to turn over a large amount of evidence to defense lawyers in a case against former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s chief of staff.

A batch of over 90,000 documents and secret recordings will soon be sent to defense lawyers handling the perjury and obstruction case against 66 year old Tim Mapes of Springfield, Madigan’s long time chief of staff, according to the Chicago Tribune yesterday.

Mapes has plead not guilty to lying to a grand jury in the sprawling ComEd bribes-for-favors case against his former boss and his associates.

At a telephonic status hearing yesterday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia Schwartz said the government sent Mapes’ defense team an initial batch of “intercepted communications and other records” on June 8th. She said the second, larger batch of discovery should be sent within the next two weeks.

An 11-page indictment alleged Mapes repeatedly lied during a March 31st appearance before the grand jury when asked about Madigan’s relationship with his longtime confidant Michael McClain of Quincy, who was charged in November of orchestrating the ongoing bribery scheme. Madigan has yet to be charged with a crime.

Mapes has denied wrongdoing and has maintained that federal authorities are attempting to squeeze him to give up incriminating information against his former boss. Mapes originally was granted immunity in May by the U.S. Attorney’s office for cooperation in the case, but was surprisingly charged in May after authorities allegedly confirmed he had perjured himself during the grand jury testimony.