In another blow to embattled House Speaker Michael Madigan, his Springfield confidant Michael McClain was charged with bribery Wednesday, along with former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, in a lobbying scheme to curry favor with Madigan.
Also named in the federal indictment are ex-top ComEd lobbyist John Hooker and Jay Doherty, the former president of the City Club, who was accused of using his consulting company to bill the utility for fake jobs and passing along that money to several Madigan associates.
The 50-page indictment alleges several tactics ComEd allegedly employed to curry favor with Madigan, who held tremendous power over the fate of legislation critical to ComEd.
At the alleged urging of McClain, then a top Springfield lobbyist, and top ComEd official Hooker, the utility in 2011 hired a law firm — not named in the indictment — to keep Madigan happy and guaranteed it a certain numbers of billable hours a year even though there wasn’t enough work to justify it at times.
Pramaggiore also allegedly appointed former McPier CEO Juan Ochoa to the ComEd board — at Madigan’s and McClain’s request.
And the utility funneled payments through Doherty’s consulting company to several Madigan associates, including $256,000 to former Ald. Frank Olivo, who once represented Madigan’s ward, and ex-Ald. Mike Zalewski, who received $5,000 a month. Doherty’s consulting company allegedly pretended the payments were for work for ComEd, when in fact it was meant for Madigan’s associates.
Pramaggiore and Doherty denied wrongdoing Wednesday. Olivo and Zalewski have not been charged and did not return messages.
ComEd even took interns from Madigan’s 13th Ward, even though some didn’t meet its requirements, including grade point averages, at times, according to the indictment.
The charges filed Wednesday track closely with details released in July when federal prosecutors charged ComEd with bribery in a bombshell case that has continued to reverberate politically in the four months that have passed.
It prompted a legislative probe of Madigan’s dealings with ComEd, contributed to Democratic defeats on Election Day — including Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s coveted graduated income tax amendment — and raised questions about whether Madigan will be able to hold onto power.
Just two weeks ago, three of the state’s top Democrats — Pritzker and Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth — called on Madigan to step down as state party chairman.
For his part, Madigan has denied wrongdoing or personal knowledge of the bribery scheme. He has said he never expected someone to be hired for a job in exchange for an action he took.
“Helping people find jobs is not a crime,” Madigan wrote in a letter to House colleagues earlier this year.
ComEd has already agreed to pay a $200 million fine — believed to be the largest criminal fine ever in Chicago’s federal court. And while the utility formally pleaded not guilty in court, it admitted to many of the feds’ allegations in a so-called deferred prosecution agreement. If ComEd abides by its terms, the bribery charge filed in July will likely be dismissed.
Former ComEd executive Fidel Marquez pleaded guilty to bribery in September, agreeing to cooperate with federal prosecutors.
In May 2018, McClain allegedly told Marquez why the Madigan associates were being paid. He explained that one of them was “one of the top three precinct captains” who also “trains people how to go door to door … so just to give you an idea how important the guy is.”
In February 2019, McClain allegedly told Hooker how to explain the payments within the company. McClain allegedly said, “We had to hire these guys because [Madigan] came to us. It’s just that simple.”
McClain also was blunt when it came to dealing with Pramaggiore, when he pressed for ComEd to keep paying a law firm to keep Madigan happy, even as officials inside the utility urged to cut back its hours.
McClain and others often didn’t refer to Madigan by name but called him “our Friend” or “a Friend of ours,” the feds claim.
On Jan. 20, 2016, McClain allegedly wrote in an email to Pramaggiore and Hooker: “I am sure you know how valuable [Lawyer A] is to our Friend. I know the drill and so do you. If you do not get involve [sic] and resolve this issue of 850 hours for his law firm per year then he will go to our Friend. Our Friend will call me and then I will call you. Is this a drill we must go through? . . . I just do not understand why we have to spend valuable minutes on items like this when we know it will provoke a reaction from our Friend.”
