Michael J. Madigan, the country’s longest-serving state House leader and the longtime head of Illinois’ Democratic Party, is in prison.

Madigan surrendered Monday to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Morgantown, West Virginia, according to a source close to the former speaker.

That facility is 500 miles away from Chicago, just south of Pittsburgh.

Madigan had asked to serve his time at a prison camp in nearby Terre Haute, Indiana, instead. Either way, he was required to begin serving his sentence at 2 p.m. Monday.

Prison camps like the one in Morgantown are known to have little to no fencing. And inmates have access to a prison commissary. At Morgantown, Madigan could purchase pitted dates for $4.35, a chess set for $7.10 and an alarm clock for $10, according to a menu online.

U.S. District Judge John Blakey handed Madigan a 7½-year prison sentence in June, four months after a jury convicted him of a bribery conspiracy, wire fraud and other crimes. Madigan testified in his own defense at trial, and Blakey found that Madigan lied to the jury.

“You lied sir. You lied,” Blakey said during Madigan’s sentencing hearing. “You did not have to. You had a right to sit there and exercise your right to silence. But you took that stand and you took the law into your own hands.”

Madigan’s surrender caps a massive corruption investigation that hearkens back to an earlier era at Chicago’s federal courthouse. The probe began in 2014. But it wasn’t until Jan. 29, 2019, that the Chicago Sun-Times revealed the FBI had secretly recorded Madigan inside his private law office.

About 20 people have since been charged. Madigan is the 11th to report to prison. Three others are due behind bars in the coming weeks.

Madigan’s conviction centered on two schemes. In one, ComEd paid five Madigan allies $1.3 million over eight years so Madigan would look more favorably at the utility’s legislation. The money was funneled through third-party firms, and the recipients did hardly any work for ComEd.

The other involved a deal to have then-Chicago Ald. Danny Solis installed on a state board in exchange for Solis’ help landing private business for Madigan’s tax appeal law firm.

Madigan has filed an appeal, but the appellate court denied his request to remain free while it plays out.

Madigan led the Illinois House of Representatives for all but two years between 1983 and 2021. He held onto the gavel for two years after the feds’ investigation went public in 2019.

Federal prosecutors filed a criminal charge against ComEd in July 2020. Then, in November of that year, they also charged four ComEd officials and lobbyists for their role in the conspiracy to illegally sway the powerful House speaker.

Longtime Madigan ally Michael McClain, former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, ex-ComEd lobbyist John Hooker and onetime City Club President Jay Doherty were all convicted in 2023 for their role in the conspiracy.

Doherty is now in prison, serving a one-year sentence. Hooker is due to surrender Tuesday to begin an 18-month term. McClain and Pramaggiore were each sentenced to two years behind bars, and they are due to report Oct. 30 and Dec. 1, respectively.

The four were indicted two months before a House vote for speaker. The burgeoning investigation prevented Madigan from mustering enough votes to keep the gavel when the time came, so he relinquished it to current Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch.

The feds didn’t level charges against Madigan until March 2022. That’s when a grand jury handed up a 106-page racketeering conspiracy indictment against him and McClain. Their eventual trial began one year ago, in the fall of 2024.

The trial lasted four months and featured more than 60 witnesses.

Key among them was Solis, an early target of the investigation. FBI agents confronted him in June 2016 and persuaded him to wear a wire against Madigan and others, like former Chicago Ald. Edward M. Burke.

Burke also went to prison for racketeering and served nine months of a two-year sentence.

In exchange for Solis’ help, prosecutors agreed to drop a bribery charge filed against him. They kept their word earlier this year after Madigan’s conviction.

Despite the flurry of convictions against Madigan, McClain, Burke and others, Solis walked away without any conviction of his own, and with his City Hall pension intact.

CHICAGO (WGN) — In just one day, former Democratic Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan will report to prison to begin serving a seven-and-a-half-year sentence.

The longtime political figure was convicted in February on 10 of 23 counts in a remarkable corruption trial that lasted four months. The case churned through 60 witnesses and mountains of documents, photographs and taped conversations.

Madigan was sentenced to 90 months in prison, along with a $2.5 million fine, the statutory maximum. He has until 2 p.m. Monday to turn himself in.

University of Illinois Chicago political science professor Dick Simpson, who has studied Chicago politics for decades, testified as an expert witness during the trial.

“The evidence was overwhelming, the jury’s decisions on 10 counts, which he was convicted, was clear. There wasn’t any ambiguity and the judge is simply moving ahead with the process,” Simpson said.

Madigan’s 10 federal convictions centered on two key cases: his effort to get former Chicago Ald. Danny Solis appointed to a state board, and a bribery scheme involving utility giant ComEd.

Earlier this month, a federal appeals court denied Madigan’s request to stay out of prison while his legal team appeals his convictions.

“The judge wants to send a clear signal that corruption is not allowed,” Simpson said. “Jail time is not any fun. It’s very difficult and it’s a severe punishment.”

According to Simpson, about 2,500 Illinois public officials have been convicted in federal court and sent to prison since 1976. He hopes this major case will inspire reform, similar to the response that followed former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s conviction.

As Madigan spends his final hours of freedom, Simpson believes the 83-year-old’s time behind bars could ultimately be shortened.

“With his age, his health problems, and his wife’s health problems, he may well get out of prison earlier, but he will still have to serve jail time,” Simpson said.