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CHICAGO — One of the nation's most powerful state legislators has for decades tended to shrug off the latest scandal involving Illinois politicians, but the sight of FBI agents hauling bags of evidence from an office on the Democratic side of the Capitol building this week may have startled the normally unflappable Mike Madigan.

Madigan, the longest-serving state House speaker in modern American history and the head of the Democratic Party in Illinois, hasn't been accused of wrongdoing. But over the past 10 months at least half a dozen Democrats — including some confidants and allies — have been charged with crimes or had agents raid their offices and homes.

Court papers mistakenly unsealed in one case involving a powerful Chicago City Council member even described a businessman wearing an FBI wire and secretly recording Madigan.

Phil Turner, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago, said it would be wrong to deduce Madigan, 77, is an FBI target now based on raids of one-time associates. But he said Madigan may still have reason to worry since those facing charges often scramble to cough up unfavorable information on others with more status.