By HANNAH MEISEL
Capitol News Illinois
hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com

CHICAGO – The day before Thanksgiving in 2016, then-AT&T Illinois president Paul La Schiazza read some news that frustrated him.

It seemed that energy giant Exelon, the parent company of Chicago-based electric utility Commonwealth Edison, was going to get a big assist from Springfield that would prevent it from having to close any more of its nuclear plants.

La Schiazza forwarded the news to several of his colleagues, bemoaning how “leaders and legislators are working so hard to get the Exelon bill done” the week of a major holiday, while AT&T’s top legislative priority had been languishing in Springfield for at least five years.

“We don’t threaten to leave, we don’t threaten to reduce jobs, we don’t threaten rate increases, we have labor support and all we want is a simple change in regulations,” La Schiazza said of AT&T’s push to get the telecom giant out from under a 1930s-era regulation obligating it to provide copper landline service everywhere in Illinois, despite customers moving away from landlines in droves.

La Schiazza wrote that getting AT&T’s bill passed “should be simple.”

“And if our consultants can’t sell that then we should find new ones..…this should be an easy lift,” his email said. “Just saying.”

A few weeks later, when one of those same colleagues forwarded news to La Schiazza about the retirement of ComEd’s longtime top outside lobbyist, the AT&T boss wrote back that it was “huge news.” The lobbyist, Mike McClain, was well-known in Springfield to be close to powerful House Speaker Michael Madigan, and therefore more influential than most.

“A shame Exelon was the one to benefit from his last big gig, not us,” La Schiazza continued in his email to AT&T lobbyist Robert Barry.

But La Schiazza’s fortunes were about to change. Two months later, McClain reached out to Barry asking if there was “even a small contract” at the company for former state Rep. Eddie Acevedo, a Democrat who’d recently retired after 20 years in the Illinois House and was looking for lobbying work.

Two days later, La Schiazza heard from McClain too. In an email with subject line “Confidential,” La Schiazza wrote to colleagues about his call with the influential lobbyist, telling them that Madigan had assigned McClain to work AT&T’s bill “as a ‘Special Project’” and that he wanted to meet.

“Game on,” La Schiazza wrote.

Federal prosecutors showed the emails to a jury on Thursday in their trial against La Schiazza, who they accuse of bribing Madigan with a contract for Acevedo, one of Madigan’s political allies.

In exchange, the feds say, AT&T finally won its prized legislation that paved the way to ending its expensive obligation to maintain its aging landline system so it could instead invest more in cellular and internet service.

La Schiazza’s attorneys, however, say prosecutors are cherry-picking moments from a complex multi-year lobbying effort stretching back to at least 2011, discounting the company’s efforts to build a coalition to push the bill forward. They point to evidence that Madigan had been warming up to AT&T’s proposal in 2015, two years before AT&T contracted with Acevedo.

The jury on Thursday also heard from retired AT&T Illinois lobbyist Steve Selcke, who testified that he’d relayed concerns Republican members had about the company retaining Acevedo. Selcke is testifying under an immunity agreement with the government.

Reading aloud from his March 2017 email from the witness stand, Selcke explained that he’d been pulled aside by a couple GOP legislators who’d gotten wind of Acevedo’s possible hiring by AT&T.

“If we have to do this we don’t want to have Eddie register as a lobbyist,” Selcke wrote. “Some republican members have said they would go south on our bill if Eddie was hired as a lobbyist.”

In addition to being “particularly partisan,” Selcke explained Thursday, Acevedo also had a reputation, not making him the most ideal candidate for an external lobbying contract.

“Eddie tended to go out in the evenings in Springfield after session and on occasion would have too much to drink,” Selcke said of Acevedo, who’s already served a six-month sentence for tax evasion stemming from his unreported income from lobbying. “And when he drank too much, he could get belligerent and, to a degree, a little loose-lipped.”

Plus, Selcke said, AT&T’s contract lobbying roster had already grown fairly large under La Schiazza’s term as president, and there was no indication Acevedo would’ve been an asset to the already big external team.

But a few days after Selcke expressed reservations about retaining Acevedo, another lobbyist emailed the team laying out a plan in which Acevedo wouldn’t have to publicly register as a lobbyist.

Instead of directly contracting with Acevedo, lobbyist Brian Gray suggested increasing external lobbyist Tom Cullen’s contract to $2,500 so that Cullen could hire Acevedo as a consultant – a designation which at the time did not have to register as a lobbyist under Illinois law. Lawmakers have since changed reporting requirements for consultants.

“We need to run this by Tom but believe he would be open to it,” Gray wrote. “Of course we would make sure that ATT gets credit for fulfilling this request.”

In response, La Schiazza wrote that he had “no objection to that plan as long as you are sure we will get credit and the box checked.”

Asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Chapman what Selcke believed La Schiazza and Gray meant by AT&T getting “credit” for retaining Acevedo, Selcke said it would be in the service of being able to report back to McClain that the company had been responsive to his request.

Selcke explained that McClain’s involvement with AT&T’s bill was viewed “as a positive” by the team, and he explained McClain’s closeness with Madigan.

Asked who he believed to be behind McClain’s request for an AT&T contract for Acevedo, Selcke said he was sure it was the speaker.

“My impression was Mr. McClain was advancing a request with Paul after a presumed discussion he had with Speaker Madigan,” he said.

McClain has already been convicted for his role in a similar but much larger bribery scheme between Madigan and ComEd, involving contracts and jobs for many of the speaker’s allies. McClain and the other ex-executives and lobbyists for the utility are fighting their convictions, but McClain will also face a related bribery and racketeering trial alongside Madigan next month.

Acevedo was eventually paid $22,500 for a nine-month contract under Cullen, ostensibly to prepare a report for AT&T about the political dynamics of the Latino Caucuses in both the Illinois General Assembly and the Chicago City Council.

But prosecutors maintain Acevedo never did that work, and that the entire assignment was a made-up cover for the alleged bribe.

Selcke will continue his testimony Friday when the trial resumes at 9 a.m.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial Association.