* Click here for all the sentencing day’s details….

Tim Mapes is due to report to prison by June 11.

— Jon Seidel (@SeidelContent) February 12, 2024

…Adding… A couple of stories…

* Sun-Times | 2 1/2 years in prison for Tim Mapes, ex-aide to Michael Madigan. ‘Your loyalty was gravely misguided’: “I don’t understand why you did what you did,” U.S. District Judge John Kness told Mapes before sentencing. “You were immunized in the grand jury. And all you had to do was go in there and tell the truth … Perhaps this was out of some sense of loyalty. But if that’s the case, your loyalty was gravely misguided.” Before he learned his sentence, Mapes stood before the judge and said he “never intended to be anything but a public servant and have tried in ways big and small to live my life as a good man.” “I also recognize that many people in the state of Illinois have lost faith in their government, and that breaks my heart,” Mapes said after taking a sip from a water bottle. “It is contrary to everything I’ve tried to do in my career, and it brings me great sorrow.”

* Tribune | Tim Mapes, former aide to Speaker Michael Madigan, sentenced to 2 1/2 years for lying to federal grand jury: The defense also submitted dozens of letters to the judge from Mapes’ family, friends and former colleagues describing him as a mentor, someone who would always go out of his way to help others, even when no one was looking. … On Sunday, prosecutors objected to the letters remaining under seal, writing that a “significant number” of them are from current and former elected officials, including a congressman, as well as employees of state government and, in one case, a sitting state appellate judge. “If there is any case for which public disclosure is warranted and appropriate, it this one, given the interplay between the defendant’s status as a public official and the nature of the underlying grand jury investigation,” the filing stated. At the outset of the hearing Monday, Kness sided with prosecutors, saying he could not “see anything in the law that tells me I have to place all of these letters under seal.”

* WTTW | Madigan’s Ex-Chief of Staff Tim Mapes Sentenced to 30 Months in Prison Following Perjury Conviction: Assistant U.S. Attorney Julia Schwartz said these were “brazen and calculated” lies that were designed to help protect Madigan and McClain. “The defendant made a choice,” she said Monday. “He chose loyalty to his two friends over telling the truth.” During his grand jury questioning, Mapes was asked if McClain had given him “any insight into what his interactions” with Madigan were “that you weren’t privy to personally?” He allegedly replied: “No, that wouldn’t — that wouldn’t happen.” Schwartz said this was just one example of answers Mapes gave that were designed to “shut down further questioning”

…Adding… From the US Attorney’s office…

The former Chief of Staff to the Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives was sentenced today to two and a half years in federal prison for providing false material testimony under oath to a federal grand jury and attempting to obstruct its investigation into allegations of public corruption.

U.S. District Judge John F. Kness imposed the sentence on TIMOTHY MAPES, 69, of Springfield, Ill. A jury in U.S. District Court in Chicago last year convicted Mapes of making false declarations before a grand jury and attempted obstruction of justice.

The sentence was announced by Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Robert W. “Wes” Wheeler, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI, and Justin Campbell, Special Agent-in-Charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division in Chicago. The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Julia Schwartz and Diane MacArthur.

Evidence presented at trial revealed that the grand jury was investigating possible violations of federal criminal law, including efforts by the Speaker of the House and a consultant acting on the Speaker’s behalf to obtain for others private jobs, contracts, and monetary payments, including from Commonwealth Edison (“ComEd”), the largest electric utility in Illinois, to influence and reward the Speaker in the Speaker’s official capacity. Mapes was granted immunity prior to his testimony before the grand jury. The immunity order provided that testimony or evidence provided by Mapes could not be used against him in a criminal case, except for perjury, giving a false statement, or otherwise failing to comply with the immunity order.

When Mapes appeared before the grand jury on March 31, 2021, he knowingly made false material declarations in response to several questions about the consultant’s relationship with the Speaker from 2017 to 2019. Mapes denied knowing that the consultant acted as an agent or performed work for the Speaker during those years, when, in fact, Mapes knew that the consultant carried out work and assignments on behalf of the Speaker and communicated messages on the Speaker’s behalf.