Date: Feb. 12, 2024 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov CHICAGO — 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 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, Justin Campbell, Special Agent-in-Charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) in Chicago, and Robert W. “Wes” Wheeler, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI. 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. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
