Mistrial Declared In Bribery Trial Of AT&T Executive

I’ve covered telecom giants like AT&T for most of an adult life. And I can tell you with absolute certainty that the company all but owns most state legislatures, who are happy to pass no limit of terrible, anti-consumer, anti-competitive legislation in exchange for a nice vacation trip or campaign contribution.

AT&T lawyers and executives are usually smart enough to avoid leaving any sort of paper trail, bribing officials within the pathetic confines of our existing, really flimsy lobbying and campaign finance laws. But in 2022, AT&T was hit with a $22 million fine for just outright bribing former state Rep. Edward Acevedo and his colleague, Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

AT&T was trying to secure legislation that would free the company from having to maintain or repair traditional copper-based (and heavily taxpayer subsidized) phone and DSL service, often still in active use by the poor and elderly. AT&T’s been going state to state, with mixed results, trying to convince state politicians that it shouldn’t have to maintain the copper-based networks taxpayers paid handsomely for and still, in many parts of the country, help connect folks to 911 services.

AT&T used a lobbying firm as an intermediary to pay Acevedo $22,500 over nine months. That resulted in the indictment of Former AT&T Illinois President Paul La Schiazza. But the attempted prosecution of La Schiazza was declared a mistrial last week in Illinois, after prosecutors failed to convince just one of twelve jurors hearing the case that bribery had occurred. La Schiazza’s attorneys were very happy about it:

“Defense attorney Tinos Diamantatos mocked the prosecutors’ case in his closing argument Tuesday, referring to the feds’ “dark and stormy night”interpretation of evidence and at one point calling his client “Mr. Unethical Bribester.” The reality, he said, is that there is no evidence that La Schiazza exchanged Acevedo’s money for AT&T’s legislative success.”

Prosecutors say they had ample email evidence bribery occurred (you can peruse the complaint and case details here).  The complaint notes that Acevedo was paid “for supposed consulting services” but clearly “did no work in return for the payments.” The bribes are clearly bribes, but in email correspondence was often couched in the kind of rhetoric that leaves things open to interpretation. If you’re an imbecile.

If you recall, AT&T also was caught in a scandal paying Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen $600k to gain inside access to the former President.

Madigan, meanwhile, is facing his own broader trial on various corruption allegations.

In just the last decade or so AT&T has been fined $18.6 million for helping rip off programs for the hearing impaired; fined $10.4 million for ripping off a program for low-income families; fined $105 million for helping “crammers” rip off their customers; and fined $60 million for lying to customers about the definition of “unlimited” data. It’s also been accused of ripping off U.S. schools for decades, something I’ve yet to see properly investigated.

Usually AT&T cleverly skirts around the limits of our fairly weak lobbying laws, and when they are caught, routinely manages to reduce or avoid fines entirely. Here we have one of the most obvious bribery cases in years showcasing how AT&T literally purchases favorable state legislation, yet it’s still somehow a steep uphill climb toward anything even vaguely resembling accountability or justice.