A federal jury Monday convicted a son of former state Rep. Edward “Eddie” Acevedo on tax charges in a case tied to the feds’ larger investigation involving ComEd and former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.
It took the jury roughly an hour of deliberations to reach its verdict against Alex Acevedo at the end of a trial that lasted three days at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse.
His sentencing hearing has been set for July 5.
Alex Acevedo, his brother Michael Acevedo and their father were each charged with cheating on their taxes in separate indictments handed up in February 2021.
Prosecutors alleged during his trial that Alex Acevedo failed to report about $49,000 for 2016 and $16,000 for 2018. They said he thought he could get away with it because the money came from Michael Acevedo’s lobbying business, Apex Strategy LLC.
The feds called that business “a virtual black box” that “concealed from the IRS all of the payments that the company had made” to Alex Acevedo.
On Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Chapman insisted during closing arguments that Alex Acevedo was a “tax cheat” who lied about his income because “he thought the IRS would have no way of verifying it.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sushma Raju also said that Alex Acevedo would have had to pay an additional $20,000 in taxes if he’d properly reported his income in 2016 and 2018.
But defense attorney Ricardo Meza told jurors that the case revolved around whether Alex Acevedo set out to cheat the government when he filed his tax returns for 2016 and 2018. He argued that Alex Acevedo simply made a mistake when he trusted his brother — and when he chose to do his own taxes.
“Alex should not be in this courtroom,” Meza told the jury Monday.
Edward Acevedo pleaded guilty in December 2021 to tax evasion, admitting he cheated the federal government out of about $37,000. He was sentenced to six months behind bars and was released last month, records show.
Meanwhile, Michael Acevedo pleaded guilty last month to cheating on his taxes to the tune of an estimated $137,000. His sentencing is set for March 15.
The charges against the Acevedos stemmed from the larger investigation into Madigan and ComEd. In about a month, four people charged as part of that investigation with trying to bribe Madigan are also set to face trial.
