{"id":30033,"date":"2022-10-20T08:02:13","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T12:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.technewsday.com\/?p=30033"},"modified":"2022-10-21T11:54:21","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T15:54:21","slug":"att-ordered-to-pay-23-million-fine-for-bribing-illinois-lawmaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/att-ordered-to-pay-23-million-fine-for-bribing-illinois-lawmaker\/","title":{"rendered":"AT&#038;T ordered to pay $23 million fine for bribing Illinois lawmaker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"arIndex_2\" data-ar-index=\"0\">AT&amp;T has been fined $23 million for bribing an Illinois lawmaker, continuing its excellent track record of paying fines.<\/p>\n<p id=\"arIndex_3\" data-ar-index=\"1\">The latest fine is part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in which AT&amp;T&#8217;s subsidiary in Illinois will pay $23 million in response to an investigation into alleged misconduct involving Michael J. Madigan, a former state lawmaker.<\/p>\n<p id=\"arIndex_4\" data-ar-index=\"2\">A lengthy criminal investigation found that AT&amp;T executives bribed people close to the former lawmaker&#8217;s ally to secure a key political vote on the 2017 Carrier of Last Resort (COLR) legislation in 2017, which would have stripped AT&amp; T of its obligation to continue providing landline service to all residents of the state, according to the Justice Department.<\/p>\n<p id=\"arIndex_5\" data-ar-index=\"3\">AT&amp;T was reportedly unhappy with the provision of outdated landlines, often used by elderly people who cannot afford or understand cellular services, and instead of making its case, AT&amp;T used an intermediary lobbying firm to transfer $22,500 to former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan to influence his vote.<\/p>\n<p id=\"arIndex_6\" data-ar-index=\"4\">Sources for this piece include an article in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/2022\/10\/19\/att-hit-with-23-million-fine-for-bribing-illinois-lawmaker\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">TechDirt<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AT&amp;T has been fined $23 million for bribing an Illinois lawmaker, continuing its excellent track record of paying fines. The latest fine is part of a deferred prosecution agreement with the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) in which AT&amp;T&#8217;s subsidiary in Illinois will pay $23 million in response to an investigation into alleged misconduct [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-30033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-todays-news","tag-top-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30033"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30124,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30033\/revisions\/30124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/technewsday.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}