Longtime Springfield insider Tom Cullen will face cross-examination Monday in the trial of a former AT&T Illinois boss accused of bribing House Speaker Michael Madigan by funneling payments the speaker’s ally through Cullen’s lobbying firm.
As Cullen is testifying, a pretrial conference is scheduled in Madigan’s own racketeering case in another courtroom at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse.
Cullen, who served for years as one of Madigan’s top political brains before building a lucrative career as a lobbyist, is a key witness against Paul La Schiazza, not only because Cullen was the alleged go-between for illicit payments to retiring state Rep. Eddie Acevedo, but also because of his well-known loyalty to Madigan and intricate knowledge of the speaker’s vaunted political operation.
Cullen testified on direct examination Friday that he was just trying to be a “team player” when he agreed in 2017 to take on Acevedo as an off-the-books consultant as a favor for AT&T, one of his top clients.
But Cullen told the Acevedo was not very pleased with AT&T’s $2,500-a-month offer, even though the job called for little or no work. In fact, Cullen said, after a meeting about the proposal, Acevedo called him and blew his stack.