Union members in the state of Illinois may have unknowingly helped foot the legal bills of Speaker Michael Madigan according to several sources. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Madigan paid out nearly a million dollars to defend the sexual harassment lawsuit of Kevin Quinn. Quinn was outed for his sexual harassment of political consultant Alaina Hampton earlier this year. Hampton was awarded $275,000 last week in a settlement negotiated by her legal team. Madigan’s legal bills and settlement costs will likely come out of the bank account of his political action committee Friends of Michael Madigan.
According to Illinois Sunshine, a tool that tracks political contributions to all politicians in the State of Illinois since 1994, says that Madigan reported over one million dollars in contributions during the latest quarterly filing period between July 1st and September 30th. During that quarterly time period, Madigan allegedly spent over $360,000 in legal fees. Since September 30th, Madigan has taken in nearly $600,000 including $71,400 from AFSCME, $57,800 in a transfer from Service Employees International Union’s Illinois Council’s political action committee, $50,000 from the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers political action committee, and $5000 from the Illinois Federation of Teachers COPE political action committee. IFT also gave Friends of Michael Madigan almost $900,000 last October. According to the Sun-Times report, some of that money in October went towards paying Madigan’s lawyers and for the settlement with Hampton. Madigan has spent near $1.5 million in legal fees since February 1st, 2018 in multiple lawsuits.
