One of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s oldest and most trusted confidants was among four people charged Wednesday with orchestrating an elaborate bribery scheme with utility giant Commonwealth Edison that allegedly funneled money and do-nothing jobs to Madigan loyalists in exchange for the speaker’s help with state legislation.
Michael McClain, 73, of downstate Quincy, was charged in a 50-page indictment returned by a federal grand jury with bribery conspiracy and bribery.
Also charged were former ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore, 62, of Barrington; lobbyist and former ComEd executive John Hooker, 71, of Chicago; and Jay Doherty, 67, a consultant and former head of the City Club of Chicago.
The indictment alleged that beginning in 2011, the defendants “arranged for various associates” of Madigan — including his political allies and campaign workers — to “obtain jobs, contracts, and monetary payments” from ComEd even in instances where they did little or no actual work. Madigan is referred to in the charges only as Public Official A.
McClain and the other defendants also conspired to have ComEd hire a Madigan-favored law firm and lawyer — previously identified in public testimony as Victor Reyes of Reyes Kurson — and to accept into ComEd’s internship program a certain number of students who resided in Madigan’s 13th Ward, according to the charges.
Pramaggiore and McClain also allegedly took steps to have an individual appointed to ComEd’s board of directors at the request of Madigan and McClain, the indictment stated.
Arraignment dates for the four defendants have not yet been set.
The charges against McClain signal federal prosecutors have now cracked Madigan’s innermost circle and pose the most imminent threat to the speaker’s decadeslong grip on power.
Madigan, the state’s most powerful politician and the longest-running House leader in the nation, has not been charged and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. A spokesperson for Madigan had no comment on the new indictment Wednesday.
But the ongoing corruption investigation has now placed Madigan in a legal jeopardy that seemed almost unimaginable just a few years ago.
The federal charges come as Madigan is trying to convince House Democrats to give him another two-year term as speaker in January.
Foes contend Madigan doesn’t have the 60 votes he needs to win yet, but a strong challenger has yet to emerge. Madigan has received significant support for reelection as speaker from organized labor, a top financial arm for doling out campaign cash to help ensure loyalty among his members.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Democratic U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth have said it was time for Madigan to step aside as state Democratic chairman.
House Republican leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs, who has pushed a legislative investigation of Madigan that has progressed little, said Wednesday evening the new indictments show the state Democratic Party under Madigan “is a corrupt organization that has run its course.”
The indictment comes a year and a half after the Chicago Tribune first reported that the FBI had raided McClain’s home and almost a year to the day after it revealed his phone had been wiretapped by investigators.
McClain’s criminal defense attorney, Patrick Cotter, said in a statement Wednesday evening that the charges were “the result of a misguided investigation and misapplication of the law driven by an obvious desire to find some way to criminally implicate” Madigan.
“In its zeal to find any evidence of criminal misconduct by (Madigan), the government is attempting to rewrite the law on bribery and criminalize long-recognized legitimate, common, and normal lobbying activity into some new form of crime,” Cotter said in the statement.
The goal, according to Cotter, was to apply “maximum pressure on Mike McClain” in order to get to Madigan, something he is unwilling to help with.
“Mike McClain cannot agree to allegations that are untrue, even to escape the crippling weight of the government’s attacks,” he wrote.
A spokesman for Pramaggiore struck a similar tone, saying in a written statement Wednesday that she “unequivocally rejects the government’s charges that she engaged in unlawful behavior” and looked forward to a “truthful accounting of the facts in this matter.”
“After enduring months of baseless innuendo and misinformation, (Pramaggiore) … is confident a review will reaffirm her unwavering adherence to the highest ethical standards and finally put to rest the damaging speculation that any actions she took constitute illegal activity,” the statement read.
Doherty’s attorneys, Michael Gillespie and Gabrielle Sansonetti, said in a statement that Doherty was “just made aware that he’s been indicted” and intended to plead not guilty “because he is not guilty of these charges.”
Hooker’s attorney could not be reached.
McClain is one of Madigan’s longest and closest friends, and served with him in the House in the 1970s and early 1980s before McClain moved on to a lucrative lobbying career that included ComEd as a client.
As he moved from legislator to lobbyist, McClain remained a staunch Madigan protector and became known as one of the few people who always had the ear of the notoriously reticent speaker, who eschews cellphones and email, and rarely holds public meetings.
In his latter years, McClain was known to camp out on a bench directly outside of the speaker’s third-floor Capitol suite that opens into the ornate rotunda, where he’d chat on the phone as acolytes and wannabes circled by to pay respects, report a secret move or gather strategy.
The indictment filed Wednesday centers around an alleged scheme that was first laid out in court documents in July, when the U.S. attorney’s office announced ComEd was being charged with bribery under a deferred prosecution agreement.
The company admitted in court documents that top executives — including Pramaggiore, Vice President Fidel Marquez and others — had conspired with McClain to make off-the-books payments to lobbyists and consultants who were close to Madigan’s operation in order to influence key legislation the utility wanted in Springfield.
ComEd and Exelon enjoyed considerable success at the Capitol during the last decade, persuading the General Assembly to approve a smart-grid overhaul in 2011 and a bailout of the nuclear power plants in downstate Clinton and the Quad Cities with consumers helping foot the bill in 2016.
Those wins, which were both specifically referenced in Wednesday’s indictment, took place under Pramaggiore, who led ComEd and was elevated to CEO of Exelon Utilities. Pramaggiore resigned abruptly last year after the investigation came to light.
ComEd agreed to pay a record $200 million fine and cooperate with investigators in exchange for the charges being dropped in three years.
Marquez was later charged with bribery conspiracy and pleaded guilty in October to his role in the scheme.
The new indictment also refers to several unnamed individuals either involved in or beneficiaries of the bribery scheme, including former 23rd Ward Ald. Michael Zalewski and former Ald. Frank Olivo, who was the hand-picked City Council member of Madigan’s 13th Ward. The indictment also refers to two precinct captains from the 13th Ward Democratic Organization.
The indictment alleged specifically that McClain and others arranged in 2018 to pay Zalewski $5,000 a month even though he didn’t actually do any work on behalf of ComEd.
The indictment alleged that Olivo — identified only as 13W1 — was paid $256,000 in consulting fees by Doherty’s company from December 2013 to April 2019. The two 13th Ward precinct captains were paid a total of $469,000 by Doherty’s firm from March 2014 to October 2016, according to the indictment.
While much of the indictment mirrors what was already spelled out in the ComEd charges, prosecutors have included new details about the alleged scheme, including emails sent to and from McClain regarding the hiring of Reyes’ law firm and the hiring of more than a dozen summer interns from a list of Madigan supporters.
In January 2016, for example, when ComEd was seeking to reduce the number of hours paid to Reyes Kurson, McClain exchanged emails with Pramaggiore and Hooker making it clear how important it was to keep Reyes in their good graces.
McClain referred to Madigan in the emails as their “Friend,” with a capital “F.”
“I am sure you know how valuable (Reyes) is to our Friend,” McClain allegedly wrote. “I know the drill and so do you. If you do not get involve(d) 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?”
McClain wrote he didn’t understand “why we have to spend valuable minutes on items like this when we know it will provoke a reaction from our Friend.”
Reyes could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
The indictment also alleges that McClain, Pramaggiore and others schemed in 2017 and 2018 to get an unnamed Elmwood Park resident friendly to Madigan appointed to ComEd’s board of directors.
According to ComEd’s deferred prosecution agreement, ComEd and Exelon did due diligence on the associate and found the nominee qualified, though no one had recruited him for the board and ComEd did not seek other candidates. The Tribune has identified that person as Juan Ochoa, a former McPier CEO who was appointed to the utility’s board but is no longer listed as being on it.
The indictment filed Wednesday alleged Pramaggiore assured McClain in a recorded phone call in September 2018 that Ochoa was a shoo-in for the appointment.
“You take good care of me and so does our friend and I will do the best that I can to, to take care of you,” Pramaggiore allegedly said on the call.
Other recorded calls mentioned in the indictment concerned ComEd’s ongoing consulting contract with Doherty’s company, J.D. Doherty & Associates. In one call from February 2019, Pramaggiore warned Marquez that he needed to “brief” other executives at the utility that there should be no changes made to the arrangement.
“We do not want to get caught up in a, you know, disruptive battle where, you know, somebody gets their nose out of joint and we’re trying to move somebody off, and then we get forced to give ’em a five-year contract because we’re in the middle of needing to get something done in Springfield,” Pramaggiore said, according to the charges.
That same arrangement was also detailed in the ComEd agreement, which described several conversations between Marquez and others allegedly involved in the scheme.
In February 2019, for example, McClain advised Marquez on how to communicate with other ComEd officials about renewing the consulting contract for Doherty’s company.
“I would say to you, don’t put anything in writing,” McClain told Marquez, according to the ComEd deferred prosecution document. “All it can do is hurt ya.”
A week later, Doherty told Marquez that two of Madigan’s associates had been put on his company’s payroll as do-nothing “subcontractors” and that ComEd should not tamper with the arrangement because “your money comes from Springfield,” the ComEd agreement states.
The new hires “keep their mouth shut,” Doherty allegedly said. “But do they do anything for me on a day-to-day basis? No.”
Doherty also warned Marquez that he had “every reason to believe” that McClain had spoken directly with Madigan about the deal, the document stated.
“(It’s) to keep (Madigan) happy (and) I think it’s worth it, because you’d hear otherwise,” Doherty told Marquez, according to the ComEd agreement.
In all, prosecutors put a value of at least $150 million on the legislative benefits ComEd received.
The Tribune’s Rick Pearson and Dan Petrella contributed.
jmeisner@chicgotribune.com
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