Longtime Springfield insider Tom Cullen will face cross-examination Monday in the trial of a former AT&T Illinois boss accused of bribing House Speaker Michael Madigan by funneling payments the speaker’s ally through Cullen’s lobbying firm.

A judge said Friday that he’ll allow a professor to testify about Chicago’s political machine at former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s upcoming corruption trial. Madigan’s defense team had asked Judge John Robert Blakey to keep University of Illinois Chicago professor Dick Simpson from taking the stand in front of a jury.

But the alleged bribe was “more sophisticated” than an envelope of cash, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Mower told the jury in his opening statement; it involved AT&T offering a nine-month do-nothing lobbying gig worth $22,

A onetime top political aide to House Speaker Michael Madigan testified Friday that passing legislation to end mandated landline service was AT&T Illinois’ top priority in 2017 when they came to him with a plan to secretly pay a Madigan ally through his lobbying firm.