Illinois
Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is in prison
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.
Former Ald. Danny Solis (25th) walks out of the Dirksen Federal Courthouse Tuesday after testifying in the racketeering conspiracy trial for Illinois’ former House Speaker Michael Madigan.
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.
Tennessee football will play Illinois in the Music City Bowl. It will be a 5:30 p.m. ET kickoff on Dec. 30 at Nissan Stadium in Nashville.
Nissan Stadium holds roughly 69,143 people, so there are plenty of tickets available.
Buy Tennessee vs Illinois
Here’s how much tickets cost and where to buy them.
Tennessee vs Illinois in the Music City Bowl
Ticket prices for the Tennessee vs Illinois start at $68 on VividSeats and $77 on StubHub. Prices in the lower bowl range from $68 to $488 on both sites.
To see a full list of ticket prices, visit StubHub.
When does Tennessee play Illinois in the Music City Bowl?
Tennessee will play Illinois on Dec. 30 at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee.
Tennessee vs Illinois score predictions
Tennessee 35, Illinois 28
Kamryn Jackson covers high school and college sports for the Spartanburg Herald-Journal, Greenville News and Anderson Independent Mail, and the USA TODAY Network. Please email her at KEJackson@gannett.com and follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @KamxJack.
Cyclones coach Bill Fennelly talks about his team’s win over Mercyhurst
Iowa State women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly recaps his team’s win over Mercyhurst.
AMES – After a week off from competition, the Iowa State women’s basketball team returns to the court today.
The 11th-ranked Cyclones (9-0) will face Northern Illinois (2-6) on Sunday at Hilton Coliseum at 1 p.m. CT.
It’s Iowa State’s first game since handing Indiana its first loss of the season in the Coconut Hoops event in Fort Myers, Fla., back on Nov. 30. Audi Crooks scored a single-game school record 47 points during the 106-95 victory over the Hoosiers that day.
Watch Iowa State vs. Northern Illinois on ESPN+
What channel is Iowa State vs. Northern Illinois on today?
Iowa State vs. Northern Illinois time today
Location: Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa.
Date: Sunday, Dec. 7
Start time: 1 p.m. CT
Tommy Birch, the Register’s sports enterprise and features reporter, has been working at the newspaper since 2008. He’s the 2018, 2020 and 2023 Iowa Sportswriter of the Year. Reach him at tbirch@dmreg.com or 515-284-8468.
Tommy Rittenhouse threw five interceptions Saturday. He atoned big time when it mattered most.
The Illinois State quarterback threw two touchdown passes to wide receiver Daniel Sobkowicz in the final three minutes and completed a gutsy 2-point PAT as the unranked Redbirds defeated No. 1 North Dakota State 29-28 in the second round of the FCS playoffs in the Fargodome on Saturday.
The Bison (12-1), the No. 1 seed, were defending FCS champions and had not lost since Nov. 23, 2024. The Bison won the FCS title 10 times from 2011 to 2024 and had beaten the Redbirds 14 straight times.
“I’ll do it again if we win by 1 point, I don’t care,” Rittenhouse said of his five INTs. “My first three interceptions were tipped at the line of scrimmage. They (NDSU) did a great job all game. That’s a really tough defense to go against, but I just trusted the guys around me. Everyone was coming up to me saying it, and I knew I was going to. That’s all I could do to give us a chance.”
WE TOLD Y’ALL ABOUT THAT RITTENHOUSE TO SOBKOWICZ CONNECTION 🤯 https://t.co/Qt7MuPLLKr pic.twitter.com/2dVZxKMTnT
— Illinois State Football (@RedbirdFB) December 6, 2025
Illinois State head coach Brock Spack said his team was partly motivated by their 42-10 defeat to UC Davis in the second round last year.
“Sometimes what happens in the last game of the season is good for you,” Spack said. “That (loss) really bothered them. That’s what I told them today, lets just be us. Just be us. That’s all you gotta do and you can win the game.”
By most measures, the Redbirds (10-4) had little chance of winning. The Bison returned one of Rittenhouse’s picks 73 yards for a touchdown and another one 21 yards to the Illinois State 4, leading to a touchdown that gave NDSU a 28-14 lead with less than 13 minutes remaining in the game.
But NDSU senior quarterback Cole Payton, considered an NFL draft prospect, struggled for most of the game and completed 4 of 12 passes for 101 yards and one touchdown. He was injured after being strip-sacked by Jake Anderson, who recovered the fumble to give Illinois State the ball at the NDSU 23 with 1:51 left in the game.
Several plays later, on fourth down and goal from the NDSU 6, Rittenhouse scrambled right and threw to a leaping Sobkowicz for their third TD connection of the day to bring the Redbirds to within a point.
“I’m not the best at rolling to the right, throwing it back, and I found that good touch and Dan went up and made the play,” Rittenhouse said.
“The play (call) didn’t plan out how we wanted it to, but when you have Tommy at quarterback and he’s got his legs and scramble drill, you gotta make sure you’re doing everything you can to get open,” Sobkowicz said. “The scramble drill is the biggest thing in football that gets overlooked, and that a big thing that our team does really well, is the scramble drill, especially because we have Tommy.”
Rather than try a PAT kick and potentially send the game into overtime, Spack opted to go for 2. Rittenhouse fired a dart to Scotty Presson Jr. in the end zone to put the Redbirds on top.
Spack said he and his coaching staff had no hesitation about going for 2.
“I thought myself earlier in the week, we gotta for 2,” Spack said. “We met as a staff and I said, listen fellas, if it gets to that down here we need to go for 2. Lo and behold, it came up and we did. So, there was really no waffling. Everybody knew.”
REDBIRDS WITH A 2PT CONVERSION🤯🤯
📺ESPN+#ValleyFootball x #FCS x @RedbirdFB x @NCAA_FCS pic.twitter.com/llBWjZmnVm
— Valley Football (@ValleyFootball) December 6, 2025
Taking over at quarterback for the injured Payton, Nathan Hayes got the Bison to their own 44 but couldn’t convert on fourth down with 12 seconds left.
Illinois State will play the winner of the UC Davis-Rhode Island game in the next round. The FCS bracket is shown here.
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