A sitting state appellate judge, a former Illinois Supreme Court justice, multiple ex-legislators and the Cook County clerk all wrote letters of support for Tim Mapes, the former Springfield insider who was convicted of perjury last year in connection with a sweeping statehouse corruption investigation.
The letters were submitted ahead of Mapes’ sentencing last month but were made public Tuesday in redacted form by order of U.S. District Judge John Kness. Mapes, former chief of staff to powerhouse ex-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan, was ultimately given 30 months in prison.
Many of the letters released Tuesday vouched for Mapes’ character and asked Kness for leniency.
Former Illinois Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Kilbride, who received millions of dollars from Madigan-backed campaign contributions over three races for the high court, called Mapes a “man of many admirable talents.”
Kilbride noted that Mapes’ son, Devin, served as a judicial intern for the justice, and Kilbride ultimately swore him in when he became a lawyer.
“Although I have not been privy to the full trial story, and my view is limited to my reading of newspaper articles, Tim’s misdeeds appear to be his first offense and to have had minimal impact on the investigation” of Madigan, wrote Kilbride, who lost his 2020 bid for a third 10-year term.
Illinois Appellate Court Justice David Ellis, who once served as Madigan’s chief House counsel and oversaw the impeachment proceedings of former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, called Mapes a “gracious, kind man.”
Ellis, a well-known book author, wrote Kness that he recognized the “difficult task a judge faces in fashioning a sentence,” but urged Kness to consider Mapes’ “family, personal kindness and compassion; and the decades of hard work he performed for the speaker and the benefit of the state of Illinois.”
Cook County Clerk Karen Yarbrough wrote that Mapes is “a good person who worked extremely hard on behalf of the people of Illinois and helped make our State a better place … his commitment to helping our society’s most vulnerable has resulted in countless lives being changed for the better.”
Yarbrough, who wrote that she was submitting the letter in her personal capacity, is head of the Cook County clerk’s office — which employs one of Mapes’ sons. She also served as interim chair of the state Democratic Party when Madigan stepped down in 2021.
Former House Majority Leader Barbara Flynn Currie, D-Chicago, said she “never had reason to question” Mapes’ “honesty or his integrity.”
“Was he perturbed when the train ran off the rails? Of course,” Currie wrote. “Could he be brusque when that happened? Of course. But he never, in my experience, carried a grudge. Today’s transgressor was tomorrow’s trusted aide.”
Longtime Madigan spokesperson Steve Brown said Mapes “devoted a lot of energy to helping people rescue themselves from personal crisis situations.”
Brown concluded that it is “beyond the scope” of “my human experiences that there is any benefit to be gained by inflicting a harsh punishment on a person” because of misstatements or a failure to recall conversations from years ago. Further, Brown noted that the events and topics Mapes was asked about “did not involve the commission of crime.”
Brown, who also served as a Madigan adviser from 1983 to 2021, misspelled the judge’s name twice, writing “Knees” instead of Kness.
Joe Lyons, a former Democratic state representative from Chicago, asked Kness to “please consider as lenient a sentencing as possible for Tim. The judgment by the jury carries with it devastating consequences for the Mapes family.”
Among the other former state representatives who vouched for Mapes’ character: John O’Connell, a longtime lobbyist who said Mapes was “not just a hard worker, but he was also an innovator;” and Frank Mautino, now the state auditor general, who wrote that, “In all things work related I have found Tim to be honest, forthright and trustworthy.”
Former Democratic state Rep. Tom Holbrook, who now serves as St. Clair County clerk, wrote he “always felt Tim had a near-impossible job keeping the House running while dealing with Members issues and egos.”
“Tim had to try to create order among hundreds of individuals who had their own agendas,” Holbrook wrote. “Tim was the person who had to say NO to legislators that seldom accepted NO. The buck stopped with Tim, and most legislators wanted to kill the messenger. Tim weathered this type of environment for decades.”
Janis Cellini, the sister of Republican powerhouse Bill Cellini who went to prison for corruption, told of her longtime friendship with Mapes’ wife, Bronwyn Rains, and said she is known by the Mapes’ sons as “Aunt Janis.” Janis Cellini, who also served as a top patronage aide to Republican Gov. Jim Edgar, called Mapes “smart, workaholic and oftentimes brutally honest and extremely demanding'” but she also maintained his role as Madigan chief of staff also meant he had to deliver “the bad news when the good news wasn’t available.”
Former U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello, a former chairman of the St. Clair County Board, also said Mapes “would always give you the bad news as well as the good. He was never a backslapper or glad-hander and never told people what they wanted to hear.”
Kurt DeWeese, a longtime and respected House Democratic staffer, said he “always appreciated Tim’s Skills and work ethic.”
The letters of praise for Mapes represented a far different picture from that of his critics.
Mapes spent years as Madigan’s chief of staff and executive director of the state Democratic Party, when, as the speaker’s premier gatekeeper, he strode the halls of power with an almost autocratic style.
He also served as the clerk of the House, where he was known as a details-driven micromanager adept at keeping the legislative trains running. Madigan unceremoniously dumped Mapes from all three positions in June 2018 after a staffer accused him of sexual harassment in a year in which the #MeToo movement cost the careers of several Madigan allies.
During Mapes’ trial, Madigan, McClain and Mapes were described as the major players in a triangle of power that held sway over the longtime speaker’s Democratic House caucus, government operations and major grip on statewide politics.
In an outside investigation Madigan ordered to review how he handled sexual harassment complaints after Mapes was among several top allies caught up in #MeToo scandals in 2018, Mapes received some of the harshest criticism. The probe, led by former federal prosecutor Maggie Hickey, “found sufficient evidence to conclude” that Mapes did not discharge his duties as chief of staff and House clerk in a “courteous and efficient manner” when he made inappropriate comments to or around staffer Sherri Garrett.
The Hickey report said state workers she interviewed “believed that Mr. Mapes attempted to motivate workers through fear and that a few other supervisors throughout the years emulated this practice.
“Some people also raised the additional concern that, given Mr. Mapes’s political ties, he could make or break their careers outside of the speaker’s office as well,” the report stated.
Mapes had kept collecting his monthly pension checks despite his conviction in August, but it is now suspended and under review since his sentencing. He received an automatic increase in January that lifted his annual pension rate to more than $154,000.
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